woodmaster flooring.

hackberry jake · November 26, 2013, 10:54:33 PM

Made some walnut flooring last weekend with the woodmaster.

This is the second load we made. The first load was about this size, maybe a little smaller. We first planed all the boards to thickness (with the woodmaster), then we cut them all to around 4' or so, depending on how long the board was. We then set up an assembly line of one friend on the jointer, me on the table saw, and my dad and brother feeding the woodmaster. It worked pretty good! One thing I would change is a shorter fence. We had to check each board for bow and put the "hump" side next to the fence or the tounge and grooves wouldn't come out in the center of the boards.

beenthere · November 26, 2013, 11:45:24 PM

Looks like a lot of great flooring, and look forward to seeing the floor.
A friendly suggestion for loading in a truck like that, is to first put a couple stickers across the fllor, then a couple more about every 5th layer to keep everything in layers and from breaking off tongues and groove edges. Too much work involved to lose pieces like that. ;)

nrp0450 · December 04, 2013, 05:16:09 PM

Jake, how hard was it to do the tongue and groove on your Woodmaster? You have to send the boards through on edge, right? I have a Foley Belsaw 985, which from what I understand is pretty similar to a Woodmaster. I want to do some tongue and groove flooring at some point. Any chance you could put up some pictures showing your guide setup?

hackberry jake · December 05, 2013, 07:04:27 PM

Sure can. I will post them tomorrow probably.

hackberry jake · December 09, 2013, 09:24:35 PM

Sorry it took so long to get back to you. You will want to set it up to where your guides are against the same face of the flooring each time. Mine is set up to where you put the best face towards the guide. Always cut the groove first. The grading goes by importance. If you use straight guides like I did, the most important thing to do is look down each board and see if it has a bow. Put the bow side against the guide and the "horns" side towards the middle of the molder. If there is no bow, just pick the best looking face and put it towards the fence. I just used home-made feather boards to hold the boards against the fence. The plastic pieces are strips of some type of slick plastic I got from hobby lobby. I think it's Mylar. Furniture wax works too but I was having to re-apply the wax every 30 minutes or so.

nrp0450 · December 10, 2013, 01:08:05 PM

That is very helpful. Thank you. Great idea to use the two feather boards connected to the middle board. I think I will copy it when we do our flooring.

In your first post you said you wished you had used a shorter fence. Can you explain that? Would a shorter fence mean you wouldn't have to put the 'horns' toward the middle and you could always pick based on the better face? Would a curved fence work too?

hackberry jake · December 10, 2013, 04:44:37 PM

A curved fence or a shorter fence would both work better than a long straight one. I havent tried short or curved so I dont know which would work better. My guess would be curved.

21incher · December 11, 2013, 08:43:02 AM

Nice job. I have a old Belsaw planer that I tried to T&G some oak and it was basically unusable with tear out on the face of the tongue if I did it with 1 pass. I wound up having to run everything several passes and it took forever. It seems like the drum does not turn fast enough for a clean cut on anything but softwood. The Woodmaster must be a better machine.

hackberry jake · December 11, 2013, 11:51:37 AM

We did it all in one pass without any tear-out. We ran the first 90% or so at full speed on the feed. Once the edge started wearing off the knives, the 5hp motor started bogging down so we had to slow the feed down. I can see where the add on "three sided molding" kit would be handy but im sure it would take two people to feed it most efficently. If you use two people, this method is pretty fast too. Most of the time there are two pieces of flooring being cut at the same time. The biggest advantage to the three sided system would be less planing. You would just have to plane one side before sending it through the molder. We did have a couple pieces that got the tounge and groove both applied to the same edge... we were able to cut them down to the smaller size and try it again though ;)

nrp0450 · December 11, 2013, 12:00:24 PM

I've done shiplap/rabbet with my Foley Belsaw 985 on oak with no tear out. That's with the boards laying flat though. I don't know if that makes a difference. This machine doesn't have an adjustable feed rate.

xlogger · December 12, 2013, 06:03:57 AM

Jake, I was thinking one day after I retired soon I hope that I might try to get a woodmaster or some machine to t&g cedar boards. I work alone and plan on keeping it that way. Do you think it would pay or be worth my time to do this with a machine like that?
What do you think would be the best way for me to go? I also have looked at the logosol. All this would have to be on 1 phase. Ricky

red oaks lumber · December 12, 2013, 07:27:31 AM

i make flooring with a 5 head moulder, i know how accurate flooring has to be. using a woodmaster or other type machines how accurate are they?can you hold tight tolerances like +- .010 on width and thickness?
when your knife starts to dull,your size is changing.

OneWithWood · December 12, 2013, 12:05:43 PM

I need to T&G about 1600 1x6 boards. I have a Woodmaster 718 and a router table with a 3hp router. I am thinking the router table would do a better job and if I can rig my power feeder to run the boards, probably easier. I am thinking I will have more control with the boards laying flat instead of on edge.

21incher · December 12, 2013, 01:09:27 PM

Quote from: OneWithWood on December 12, 2013, 12:05:43 PM
I need to T&G about 1600 1x6 boards. I have a Woodmaster 718 and a router table with a 3hp router. I am thinking the router table would do a better job and if I can rig my power feeder to run the boards, probably easier. I am thinking I will have more control with the boards laying flat instead of on edge.

It would be neat if you came up with a out feed table for your woodmaster that would contain guides and allow you to mount 2 routers to it so you could plane the final side of the paneling to thickness and place the T&G on the board at the same time. The only trouble would be all boards would have to be fairly straight and approx the same width and you would probably need a fingerboard on the top so each board would not lift as the next one pushed it through.

Brian_Rhoad · December 12, 2013, 02:24:49 PM

Woodmaster already has a setup like that. 2 routers mounted on the out feed table. does the tongue and groove at the same time.

xlogger · December 12, 2013, 06:27:14 PM

Quote from: xlogger on December 12, 2013, 06:03:57 AM
Jake or anyone, I was thinking one day after I retired soon I hope that I might try to get a woodmaster or some machine to t&g cedar boards. I work alone and plan on keeping it that way. Do you think it would pay or be worth my time to do this with a machine like that?
What do you think would be the best way for me to go? I also have looked at the logosol. All this would have to be on 1 phase electric. Ricky

hackberry jake · December 12, 2013, 09:33:19 PM

Ricky, it all depends on how much you are going to need to t and g. If you are just going to do very little, you would be better off buying the cedar boards already done or having it done by a cabinet shop. If you will be doing slightly more than a little (like a couple rooms worth of paneling or so), you could set up a router table and t and g that way. If you will be doing a lot (like paneling for a whole house) then you could probably justify something like a woodmaster. If you want to make enough to sell to the general public and make some money (hopefully) then you should try to find a used 5 head molder or a logosol molder. The woodmaster made the flooring as accurately as a 5head molder would except it just took more steps and more time.

Birchwood Logging · December 12, 2013, 09:35:01 PM

those woodmasters are great little planers i have one and have worked its guts out very well made only problem i have had with mine is the feed rate motor had to replace i never used it to t&g with though i got a old jay a fay&egan 4 head moulding machine we use to make flooring and moulding

xlogger · December 13, 2013, 05:21:29 AM

I saw mostly cedar with my mill and I was thinking about getting more from the wood if I started making T&g out of the smaller pieces of lumber, mainly for cedar closets or what ever anyone wanted. I not about high production but was just wondering if I was to t&g some boards with it how many bd ft an hour could I expect say in 4" boards. I heard others say that you have to have the boards cut close to the width and ready for the machine before you run them threw. I understand you have to do that with a logosol also. This is all new to me but the mill was also when I got it. I have a man I saw for that does want me to also run old pine boards into t&g on a regular basics if I get it also. I would have some work if I got it, its not for personal use. I would like to talk to someone with one with the t&g attachment on the phone if anyone would send me a phone # or I could send them my #. Ricky

sawwood · December 30, 2013, 08:41:58 PM

I just finished making T&G on 230bf of cedar. I have the woodmaster 18 and set it up
like Jake showed. I did use the custom knife holders 700c and put one knife up and the
other one down. I have some photos I will show how I set my woodmaster up. I also
made a video of it and will see if I can put it on here. I do need to ask any one that make
molding how do you charge ? I quoted .50 cents bf plus the knifes. I also did planning and
ripping the boards to 3 different widths. I quoted .25 for the planning and .25 for the ripping. I will add the photos later as soon as my son down loads them off the camera.

Sawwood

xlogger · December 31, 2013, 05:47:00 AM

Sawwood how long did it take to do the 230 bd ft?

sawwood · December 31, 2013, 10:42:26 AM

xlogger it took 1 hour to set up the wood master and 4 hours to run 230 bf. I had to stop and clean some chips
out when i changed the setting as i had 3 different widths. The one thing i found out is you need to make sure the
lumber is real straight. Also i would not make any t&g in lumber under 3/4 thick. The cedar was not the best and
you will see what its like when i put the video on later. The cedar was 5/8 thick and even when i used two feather
boards it still moved going threw the knife. The customer was helping me and he was OK with how they came out.

I think if i do any more t&g and its under 500bf i will charge by the hour, or i need to buy the t&g out feed unit
that wood master sells.

Sawwood

sawwood · December 31, 2013, 08:46:05 PM

I finely up loaded some vides to my YouTube and put a link in my profile so you can
go look at what I have. I put some of the T&G videos that shows how I set up the
woodmaster for ripping and molding. I have couple more but I need edit them as they
are to long. Thanks for looking and have a good New Year All.

Sawwood

Sawyer697 · February 03, 2014, 10:08:35 AM

i have made Cherry flooring for my house and installed it. It takes a lot of passes on the Wood-Master. Make sure your lumber is nice and straight, trimmed to the right width, and allow plenty of support.
Made guides for running the boards on edge, doing the groove first, then the tongue. Cherry in 5 Rooms, looking good! Used Varnish to finish, tried Oil, but had to be done each year. Lot of time used in this, but it came out of my woods, sawed it, dried it in the Kiln dryer.

1997 Wood-Mizer HD40g24