Tongue and grooving your own lumber

[woodroe]

Been laying some hard and soft wood flooring here w/lumber from the back 20.
Set up a homemade router table with my 1st 350 sq ft of random width plank hardwood to cut the T & Gs. It went pretty good but didn't like having to plane the boards from 15/16 down to 3/4 on my little 13" planer. I don't have a full shop of woordworking tools and the router knives required a 3/4 thick board to come out right.


Asked a couple people in the know about other possible ways to T & G boards and
was given the idea of cutting splines to insert in the gooves . All this can be done with a table saw and have tried this out using 1 " thick random width white pine , planed enough to be smooth , flat and equal thickness.
To get a 3/16" groove on both edges i doubled up 2 blades on the table saw and set the fence to cut down the middle of the board edge.
Cutting the spines goes quick and can vary in the length, whatever is easiest to work with. I cut the spline width and thickness a hair less than groove width.
With the board down and spline inserted it can be blind nailed like any T&G project.

So anyone else ever use this method of T & G ?

I like the simplicity of it, and you save some board width every run, no more planing than necessary too.

[Burlkraft]

I did a lot of T&G this year,
I have a Delta 3 hp shaper with a Delta 1/4 hp stock feeder.
Last year I did 3000 bf of cedar T&G without the stock feeder      I wanna shake the hand of who ever invented the stock feeder. That made the whole process a lot easier  ;D  ;D

I have 2 sets of bits. One square set for flooring and a round top set for everything else.

This is still a slow way to do it, but it works quite well  ;)

[ahlkey]

I would like to do something similar this fall with all the 1" stock of Hickory lumber that I sawed last year.  The Grizzly equipment I have in my shop is a 3HP jointer, 2HP 15" planer, and 2HP tablesaw in my shop and agree even if this is slow process it is nice to know it is doable.

[Burlkraft]

Make sure you shut the lights off while you are T&G'ing the hickory.

The sparks you get sometimes are impressive.   

I like the look of hickory, but I hate working with it.

I had a friend build the hickory cabinets we have in the kitchen.  ;)  :D  :D  :D

[Magicman]

So anyone else ever use this method of T & G ?

Yes,  I used ¼" plywood for my splines.

[jim king]

I one time made T & G ceiling boards using a Dado blade on a long homemade wooden table saw. It worked quite well but no decorative beading, just a flat T & G.

Two fences the thickness of the board apart and almost the heigth of the board and screwed down to the table for the groove and the tounge was just passing the board over the dado blade twice.

[woodbowl]

I haven't made up my mind what I need to do yet. I am pressed for time, but want the look of t&g on the floor and wall. I am tempted to rabitt and slightly bevel the edges to blend it together, but not sure how strong it would be on the floor.

Burlkraft, how thick was the cedar after planing, when you did the t&g? What is the difference in the 2 sets of bits?

[isawlogs]

The square edge one would be for the flooring and the rounf edged one I would beleive to be for the ceiling as it would leave a rounded edge on the face that shows .

   But I have been known to be wrong             sometimes  ;D..  :D

[woodbowl]

I've seen shallow "v" groove flooring and it looked real good, but I've wondered how it was to clean.

[Larry]

Most, maybe all pre-finished floors have the V groove.  There is a reason for it...even with million dollar moulding machines they can get thick and thin flooring.  Maybe only 1/64" or less, but its noticeable. 

[woodroe]

I tried to go the Dado route but my portable Makita table saw wouldn't accept it.
So trying to keep it inexpensive just doubled up two blades.
I've put down 1x 8 or 10 (can't remember) pine v match with the v up for a guy who owned a general store.
It looked good , the cleaning of the grooves might take a little more time but the dirt falls in them, good place for it  :D
Personally i like the square edge T&G.

[Burlkraft]

The cedar was at 13/16 after planing.
The square bits worked great for flooring. I did have some alignment problems, but a light sanding after it was installed made it work out perrrrfect!   ;D

The round topped one I use for wall boards. The round top lets you "adjust" the board to fit the wall.
The round cutter also has a cutter to make 1/2 of the V on the edge of the boards.

[nas]

I've seen shallow "v" groove flooring and it looked real good, but I've wondered how it was to clean.

Had it in the old house, da wife said "never again!!"

Nick

[fishpharmer]

We have it too.  my wife says the same.  The v collects crud.

[isawlogs]

 That "v" groove will go away with a sanding  ;) 

[Radar67]

It will go away if you let the dirt fill it up too.  :D

[terrifictimbersllc]

vacuum 2 weeks in a row, mop the 3rd, and sand every 4th week  :D :D :D :D

[jim king]

That little "V" groove or "Micro Bevel" is done mostly on prefinished or laminate flooring so as to disguise the slight imperfections in the floor to eliminate sanding which would ruin the prefinished surface.

[Bill Gaiche]

I see that you doubled the blades to cut the grove. Could you then put a spacer the width of the grove that you just cut, between blades to cut the tounge? bg

[woodroe]

I see that you doubled the blades to cut the grove. Could you then put a spacer the width of the grove that you just cut, between blades to cut the tounge? bg

That would not work on my portable table saw. The opening for the blade in the top of the table is only 3/8" wide.

[Bill Gaiche]

woodroe , I just figured that your saw had a removable blade plate. I have a craftsman 10" and had to make a new plate for it with a wider saw slot. bg

[Banjo picker]

I used a moulding head on my ole radial arm saw to cut all the moulding in our house when I built it 20 something years ago....there is a tounge and grove set of bits included with it...Craftsman from sears...You could use them on a table saw as long as you had the removable plate as previously talked about....Just make sure you use hold down jigs or the saw will jerk the wood out of your hand and possibly kill you.   I needed about 8 more feet of something and couldn't find the right jig....After the piece of wood hit the shop ceiling I made another....Tim