End grain floors

[Fla._Deadheader]

 Dodgy, I thought that comment was over the top, but, just had to add it to the thread. LOTS of x-perts out there, EH  

  I'm SURE Jim likes the way we hi-jacker his thread.  Sorry, Jim. 

[Ole CB]

  Here are some pictures of the same questions I had posted in soaking walnut.





  These pics were taken in Chicago, Ill. USA. Jim, It seems like we need the same info.

[shinnlinger]

When I was a kid, I remember a mall did end grain flooring and I thought it was pretty neat.  A few months later though it bubbled up as the wood expanded.  Now it has expansion joints avery 10ft ft or so.  I suppose you could reserve the joint for the edges of a room and possibly even cover with trim

SOrt of related, my father in law used to work at a lumber yard in germany just after the war, and he was promoted to kiln operator when the previous kiln guy over dried a batch of flooring for a dance hall and when it expanded it blew the walls out.

[rocksnstumps]

I use to work at a plant in Memphis that had a small section where the machine shop was that had an end grain block floor. About 3" squares probably about the same height.  The machinists said is was way easier on your feet than concrete. No grout other than the accumulation of dirt and oil as mentioned earlier. The milling machines were on concrete pads however. If you looked, you could find many with alum rivets squished into them.....the plant made airplane wings for WW II bombers at one time so they had been there almost 50 years when I worked there. Some interesting history but the place was all changed when it was sold right after I moved on.

[SwampDonkey]

I've never seen end grain used up here. The only wood flooring that exists in old buildings is most always hard maple, and it's not tung and grooved, just laid edge to edge, usually no wider than 2". Also, some old buildings just had planed spruce flooring, which was painted. I can remember being in old homes when I was a kid, and some of the early flooring before vinyl would be warn through to the original spruce or maple floors. Why someone would want to put that crap on a nice maple floor is beyond comprehension.

[low_48]

All the factory floors at Caterpillar used to be end grain blocks. They were all sealed with tar. Not home friendly. When I worked on those floors, I can remember machine coolant spills that would buckle the floor. They scooped out the blocks, laid in new block, then poured on the tar. Talk about bad smell!
I once saw an end grain block floor laid on This Old House. They used powdered cork and shellac as the grout. The cork would have the give for wood expansion.
Here's a great pic of a cordwood house wall. Maybe it'll give you some ideas. Stupid long links.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://media.43places.com/entry/469607pw150.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.43things.com/entries/view/3712360&usg=__6hsnNN-rsmi-yXqEm0o3zyn5R3k=&h=131&w=150&sz=6&hl=en&start=299&um=1&tbnid=5m5pn7wIF9IlKM:&tbnh=84&tbnw=96&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcordwood%2Bhouse%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D280%26um%3D1

[SwampDonkey]

Stupid long links.

This is how you shorten them.

Much shorter link wouldn't you say?

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