Flooring

[Wes]

One of my log sources is building a new house and wants to use some of the wood that he brought me for flooring.

I only have air dried, its 4/4 red oak that has been air dried for over a year. I plan on plaining and shiplaping it, the boards will be 5" and 6" wide, before machining I will be stickering it inside a heated area for about 4 weeks.

My question is, does this sound ok, or should I try to get it kd first? theres not too many kilns around and it has to be ready for installation in 2 months.

Thanks
Wes

[ElectricAl]

Wes,

Call a local installer and ask them what % they install.

If you plan to sell very much, you may want to invest in a good Moisture meter.

Plan on $250-300 for a good one. With meters you get what you pay for.

[woodmills1]

Wes, I have had good results making flooring by doing a plane to make all boards uniform, but not to finished thickness.  Then stickering inside for as long as possible before final machining.  Four weeks would be good but a minimum.  However I think if you plane, sticker for 4 weeks inside, then machine and sticker at the job site till use, you should have least amout of shrinkage for the conditions.  As long as the jobsite is dried in and heated.  I have heard that it is not good to acclimate flooring while sheet rock work is drying as there is a lot of moisture from the drying mud.

[woodmills1]

I forgot to ask why you are using shiplap rather than tounge and groove?  Shiplap will cover the joints but will require all boards to be face nailed.  Tounge and groove allows the nail to be hidden in the tounge.   I would also think about relieving the backs on 5-6 inch flooring.  

[Wes]

I read an article in sawmill & woodlot magizine, by Irwin Post about custom flooring,In it he covered 3 edges for flooring.he doesn't recomend T&G for widths over 6".I know I said 5" to 6" and he doesn't use a back relief.I think the shiplap will be easier for me to make and the RO boards will be screwed through the face and countersunk and covered with Black Walnut plugs, the floor will also have a black Walnut border.
Thanks for the advice wood mills ,I'll plane it like you said,if you think of anything else please let me know.

Wes

[woodmills1]

I have made a fair amount of flooring for myself and customers.  I find I have to watch out how I treat the beginning and the end of the pieces.  If i drift on either the jointer or the shaper the ends of the piece will be ever so slightly wide or (most) thinner than the others or the tounge/groove is high or low.  Of course that will show up as a gap in the flooring or a tounge that won't line up.  Funny thing is that during the production of the flooring it is easy to say, Oh I will just trim that off when using.  But, while laying the floor there is just to much else to think about, so now the piece is nailed to the floor and the mismatch shows up.  I don't end match but have often thought about using a biscuit jointer on the ends of wider flooring.

[Wes]

 We also plan on biscut joining the ends.

[woodmills1]

There is also some nifty green thin rubber like underlayment on the market now.

Try as I might on the last job I couldn't get the chop saw to do a true 90.  flip boards and set together and there would be just a slight gap.  Solution was to cut each piece the same.  Top up, groove toward fence, left edge first(board to right) right edge second(board to left) nice match on end cuts.

[karl]

Good advice from woodmills-
Lots a times there is higher humidity in a new house than there ever will be again- new concrete, drywall, wet lumber, condensation from space heaters this time of year - might want to check humidity and add a dehumidifier to the site before bringing flooring in to acclimate.
ditto on cutting ends- always groove to fence and face up- any angle out of sq. either way is matched that way.
Sounds like a neat floor- what's the chances we might see pics of finished floor?

[Wes]

Karl, I'll do pics.  some good points on the humidity.

Woodmills, What aer some good lengths to cut the rough boards at ? Now they are all about 10'-12' .

Wes

[woodmills1]

If I had fancy hold downs and power feed for the shaper I would probably run the long lengths and trim on the job site.
Working by hand with homemade hold downs 6 foot is a real nice length easy to work with.  Though I would not just trim them to an arbitrary length like 6 foot unless the board was perfect.  In my experience each piece sort of tells you where to trim, like at a knot that is sure to blow up in the planer or at cross grain that will tear out.  Sometimes the cut needs to be made where some warp will make it impossible to joint a straight edge.  Long pieces of flooring make for a nice looking floor, but wait till you try to bend a wide piece so that the gap closes, you will have that thing back on the chop saw in no time.

[burlman]

 3 years ago I was doing a trim an interior trim job on a new timber frame home. We  laid 1800 sq. ft. of 1X8 yellow birch floor. It was a great job for a really picky client. I bought the wood wholesale, select and better grade with  clear heartwood included. I had it machined at a local millworkshop with about 5 half round fluteted grooves taken out of the underside. When it was delivered to the house it metered at 8% mc. To retain that level I stored the flooring in a sealable room with a dehumidifier running and some low heat , till we were ready for installation. The customer had us sort all the boards or colour, pull all the spectacular boards aside for exposure in  areas where they would be seen, not under a rug or couch. ( there  was  a  good portion of boards that were curly birch) During installation I set up the tablesaw and ran a deep kerf down the center of each plank on the backside as an extra precaution to prevent cupping from the excess humidity from the new construction.  We shot the floor down with an air stapler, some boards were 16' long, it was tounge and groove, and we screwed  each end of the boards amd plugged them with cherry plugs. As a result of all the extra effort we put into the project, now in the dry interior heat of winter, the most the floorr opened in one spot is maybe,1/16 in. Remember that the wider the board you play with the more it will pull away from its mate if it is not dried properly. Good luck....... Burlman

[oakiemac]

burlman,

Is the grooves on the underside to prevent cupping? I noticed that a lot of flooring in the home centers has these grooves.

[Wes]

 Thanks burl man.  

I stickered 1000bf in my basement and the RH went from 8% to 30% in 2 days.

[Wes]

I need a recomdation for underlayment,[ product name]

woodmills mentioned a type of green rubber, someone else told me to use red felt.

Thanks
Wes

[Norm]

Wes if you haven't been there before the NOFMA website has some great information on installing hardwood flooring.

http://www.nofma.org/

The last time we layed flooring we ran out of felt paper and did one room with and one without. I can't tell any difference but would use nofma's recomendations just to be safe.

[woodmills1]

I have used the red stuff, I think it is called rosin paper.  Also have used 15 pound roofing felt.  Both of these are supposed to cut down on squeeks.  Here is a link to a home depot page for underlayment, I think the first one is what the customer bought on my last job.

Sorry, I took the link out, it didn't go to the right page and it blew out the size of this page.  Try www.homedepot.com then click on home decor then flooring then underlayment.  

[Wes]

Thanks for the links guys , I'll be getting back to you with some more questions soon.

Wes