Self Milled Flooring.. Hackberry or Ash

[Scott Hildenbrand]

Anything one should keep in mind when milling their own flooring in regards to grain direction or etc? I'm looking at milling my own to a finished size of 5" wide by around 3/4" thick, if not more, out of rough sawn kiln dried material. I was originally considering Poplar but have shifted to either Hackberry or Ash due to the denser wood hardness and it's basically the same price in my geo location.

Thoughts? I'll be milling with a jointer and planer as well as the table saw for a standard T&G. Then hand scraping the boards to give more character and a slight chamfer to the edge.

[Chris Fournier]

It's a bucket of work but I've done it several times and enjoyed the process. I didn't treat the grain direction issue any differently than when I am building furniture. Try to cut down the grain when machining the tongue and that's about the only little extra to the job. I would definitley bring the stock down to thickness in stages over a week or two and keep it stickered in between j/p sessions. Frogging the bottom is well worth the machining set up too - keeps the floor boards from rocking on uneven subfloors.

If you have ideas about staining the floor once its installed then I'd try your finish choice on both the ash and the hackberry before I committed to a species. Hackberry is really hard but I seem to recall that I had a bit of trouble colouring it.

Nice to hear that someone is considering using Hackberry! It can have a problem with blue stain if it isn't dried properly - one last thing to watch out for.

[Scott Hildenbrand]

Thanks for bringing that up. Was going to ask about profiling the bottom of the boards, but forgot to put that in. What profile should be put in? I thought it would be like 5-10 rounded grooves the entire length around 1/4" deep? Inquiring mind.

Know it'll be boat loads of work for sure and I figured it would indeed be several steps. Joint and mark one edge and rip close to thickness and let sit.. Joint the bottom and let sit... Plane the top and let sit.. Final cut to width and put a groove in.. Then later mill the tongue and then scrape the chamfers. Etc etc.

I'd surely enjoy doing it, even if it is a boat load of work.. Plus there's the added bonus of saying "I did that floor" and then having to go into explaining "I DID that floor" when they ask where you bought the flooring.

[Chris Fournier]

Take a look at commercial flooring for the frog detail. It doesn't need to be deep just needs to remove the material between the tongue edge and the groove edges leaving about 3/4" at each edge. It doesn't look pretty but multiple passes across the width of the bottom face with a 3/4" dado blade would do it.

I personally like to remove stock from both faces when I'm bringing a board to the desired thickness. I skip dress it to start, not concerning myself with removing every defect, just trying to remove the same amount of material from both faces as I move towards final thickness.

I made all the flooring in my house and my reasoning for doing so wasn't any better than yours. I'd do it again and make my dog wear slippers next time around.

[Scott Hildenbrand]

Ahhh... I had not thought of doing that.. Wonder though if it'd be wise for wide plank flooring.. But then, could always leave a strip down the center.

This is what I thought you were talking about, which is to my understanding only to help keep the wood stable.



I'll have to take a look at some flooring next chance I'm out and see how it's milled.

[Alex Horvath]

Also, I don't know how much it really matters but the T&G on commercial flooring is no simple matter. The groove is a simple 1/4" but the lower leg is cut back so that any debris won't interfere with closing the joint.

Also, the tongue is not square shouldered (although it seems to vary with manufacturer) - it has a taper so it creates a tight fit with the groove to reduce squeaking and it is held back from the bottom of the groove. They sell special bits for this but they're an arm and a leg. Also the tongue on the board ends is often slightly thinner presumably so the end grain does not catch.

I don't think it will make much difference on 5" flooring anyhow because flooring that wide will gap over time.

I knew a guy who made wide flooring and he used a hand held router to make the grooves because he said it followed the wood better whereas a router table or table saw may fight you.

One thing that will make a huge difference in stability IMO is to coat the back side of the planks with poly to even up the moisture exchange. I did this on my 4&1/4" maple flooring and after 5 years I'll only see a few minor gaps when the humidity gets down to 40%. Most of the pros use nails/staples + urethane adhesive on solid, wide boards to reduce gapping but I'm a little dubious if this really does much.

[Dave MacArthur]

Scott,
Here are two threads on making flooring, and the choices on how to mill the boards, what steps when, what machines best for what steps, etc... This was for a guy trying to make a profit at it, so there was a lot of discussion on how fast and reliably a worker could do steps on different machines, but I'd think a lot of the discussion would be helpful. There were several folks who had made flooring professionally who chimed in. I was interested in how it all turned out, but don't think any results ever posted.

Large flooring project - please review profitability for me

Started by dirk martin, 07-06-2010 10:57 PM

If you had a shaper and a Woodmaster, would you ever profile on the Woodmaster?

Started by dirk martin, 07-08-2010 8:33 PM

[Alex Horvath]

I stand corrected on the adhesive issue - I just was looking at some excerpts from the book mentioned and the author states that adhesive is recommended for plank flooring to supplement the nails.

[Scott Hildenbrand]

Alex.. Thanks for the info and reminder to coat the back side. I'd really forgot about that little tidbit of equalization.

I'm considering the Amana 55456 router bit set to do the grooves. A little over $100, but worth it for any number of boards. Which I estimate will be around 400 square foot, if not more depending on how it turns out. But that bumps the price .25/sf soooo... Not 100% sure.. There ARE other bit options out there though that are cheaper.

Someone remind me why you shouldn't glue the tongue itself?

[Scott Hildenbrand]

Dave, thanks a bunch for the direction to prior discussions.. Know some times bringing up topics like this can be like beating a dead horse. Been covered before.. But ever with the Google gods, it's some times hard to find.

[Dave MacArthur]

Oh, I'm glad you're asking, and I hope you'll post results all along the way! I've been looking at doing some flooring for 700 sf or so, and it looks like a ton of work, and I'd never be able to do it for the price of lumber liquidators. But, still looking... I could see doing one room at a time, different types maybe. So I keep reading these threads

[Chris Padilla]

Wouldn't a shaper be better at this? I can't imagine doing this on a router table. Wouldn't you need a couple sets of router bits?

[David Nelson1]

Scott,
As Alex as saying, Amana has about 4 different profiles for the T/G specific to flooring as I remember they hovered in 150 - 200 range. The down side of that is they are intended for a shaper.

How had you planned on doing your T/G as well as your back relief cuts? My original thought for the back cut was to use the joiner. Amana sells blades for that purpose as well. I finally decided to get a Woodmaster because I don't wanna hand feed the stock.

[David Nelson1]

Scott,

Here are a few more threads that may contain some useful info. Please keep us posted. I didn't give up on my project, I got sick shortly after I got the wood to the kiln. I'm planning on starting my flooring in a few months, just depends on my heath. I can do the millwork, but getting it installed is going to be the major problem.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...5-T-G-flooring.....

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...dwood-flooring

[Scott Hildenbrand]

Wouldn't a shaper be better at this? I can't imagine doing this on a router table. Wouldn't you need a couple sets of router bits?

Chris: You're right, a shaper would indeed be much better for the job. However a router will work so long as it's not over worked and is given a break from time to time.. Which frankly, I'll need too. Far as needing several router bits, both the woods I'm looking at are on the softer side, so I'm sure the bit set from Amana will stay more than sharp enough.

Scott,
As Alex as saying, Amana has about 4 different profiles for the T/G specific to flooring as I remember they hovered in 150 - 200 range. The down side of that is they are intended for a shaper.

How had you planned on doing your T/G as well as your back relief cuts? My original thought for the back cut was to use the joiner. Amana sells blades for that purpose as well. I finally decided to get a Woodmaster because I don't wanna hand feed the stock.

David: They do have bits for routers as well. http://www.amanatool.com/bits-fv/45663.html - Runs $102 for the one I'm looking at.

When and if I do indeed do this I'll surely post. Chances are high that I will.. But flooring falls after all the reconstruction that I'm going to end up having to do.