Newbie, making a bunch of flooring

[Phil Landwer]

I've got a guy that wants to buy alot of flooring from me. Red oak.
Minimum of 2' lengths, and 4" wide, or wider....sorted by width and grade, in 1" intervals,
No rush on this, and I have all the red oak in stock, in random lengths and widths and grades.
The best part is....I got all this rough red oak, for free.

For tools, I have a Woodmaster planer, a 12" table saw with Magic Moulder and special flooring tongue/groove plugs, Radial arm, 2 stock feeders, and a Festool circular saw. Amount of sawdust and chips is no issue.

Here's my production plan.

1. Grab a board.
2. Inspect it, and determine what grade I'll get out of it.
3. Using the radial arm and circular saw, I'll cut out the major defects.
3. Straight line rip one edge (many ways to do this. Not concerned).
4. Put a tape on the board, and see the widest plank I can get from this board.
5. Rip to final width.
6. Plane to 3/4" thickness.
7. Place board on proper stack of blanks, waiting for tongue and groove.
7. Go back to step 1, until I'm tired.

When I'm untired:

a) Put Magic Moulder (MM) hub on table saw.
b) Load tongue plug.
c) With stock feeder in place, start feeding boards through table saw, cutting tongue.
d) Repeat step c, until I feel like cutting grooves.
e) Load groove plug into MM.
f) Cut grooves.

Since I'm cutting various widths from my rough stock, it seems this will keep waste to a minimum. Since my client wants flooring 4" and wider, I'll still process narrower boards efficiently, but set them aside for other clients. This should get maximum usage out of my boards.

Ok. That's the plan. Now, my questions...

Step (5) has me a little concerned. Remember, I'm making a stack of 5" wide boards, 6" wide, 7", etc. If I rip a board to 6" today, and then rip some more tomorrow to 6", my table saw fence needs to be dead on the mark, each time, right? I mean, if my table saw fence is off just a tiny, tiny bit, and a board is a tiny bit over or under from the rest, that will leave a gap in the floor, right? Am I close enough by just taking a board from yesterday, and laying it against my blade, and then bring my fence over to touch the board? Is that a simple enough way to keep my boards the same width? Is that accurate enough?

And, the final width of the plank is also determined by step (c) and (e), so it would seem. If I lift my MM, with the groove plug, just a tiny fraction of an inch higher today, than I did yesterday, I'll end of with planks ever-so-slightly narrower today, thus affecting installation. The groove will be the same depth, but the MM will cut away at the board width a tiny bit. Same with the tongue side, I would assume. Do I need to use a dial gauge calipers, to get my MM the same height each time?

Thanks gang.
-Phil

[Ed Hazel]

For ripping make some quages that fit in your t slot and you can slide your fence up to it, kind of like an L laid down
make easy fast set up no measuring needed.

[Peter Quinn]

Shaper. Shaper. Shaper. The best tool for this is a........shaper. Its not that you can't work this out on a TS, but it will be a major PIA. I would sort ALL of the lumber up front. Start by hit and miss planing the rough stock so you can clearly and quickly read the grain, sort the boards into each size, straight line ALL of it. Then start by ripping the widest material. If a rip doesn't make the size you thought, put it in the next stack. ETC. Using a shaper with an indexed back fence eliminates ALL error, and the installer will thank you for that. If this is not possible, definitely get a good set of dial calipers, make set up blocks like Ed describes. Make a stout tall fence for the TS. And get a shaper.......

[Scott T Smith]

Phil, your sequence is wrong.

Peter hit the nail on the head 100% with his recommendations, especially the part about skip joint/planing first. Sort coming out of the jointing/planing process.

The only thing that I would add to his advice is to set aside any boards that have a crook in them, and cut them down into shorter lengths before SLR and ripping to width.

[John TenEyck]

I agree that a shaper would be best, but if you don't have one a router would do an equally good job albeit a little slower. Also, you mentioned planing the wood to thickness but I saw no mention of jointing one face flat first. Unless your stock is already flat you will need to joint it flat on one face first. And how are you going to sand out those planer marks? Can you sand with your Woodmaster? Hope so.

John

[Phil Landwer]

Excellent.
Thanks.

[Phil Landwer]

Shaper. Shaper. Shaper. The best tool for this is a........shaper. Its not that you can't work this out on a TS, but it will be a major PIA. I would sort ALL of the lumber up front. Start by hit and miss planing the rough stock so you can clearly and quickly read the grain, sort the boards into each size, straight line ALL of it. Then start by ripping the widest material. If a rip doesn't make the size you thought, put it in the next stack. ETC. Using a shaper with an indexed back fence eliminates ALL error, and the installer will thank you for that. If this is not possible, definitely get a good set of dial calipers, make set up blocks like Ed describes. Make a stout tall fence for the TS. And get a shaper.......

Thanks, Peter.
Maybe I can afford a shaper after I make a bit, this way...

[Phil Landwer]

I agree that a shaper would be best, but if you don't have one a router would do an equally good job albeit a little slower. Also, you mentioned planing the wood to thickness but I saw no mention of jointing one face flat first. Unless your stock is already flat you will need to joint it flat on one face first. And how are you going to sand out those planer marks? Can you sand with your Woodmaster? Hope so.

John

Router? Why use a router, when I have the Magic Moulder with a stock feeder?
My planer has a helical head. Do I really need to sand this stock, before delivering? I thought the installer will sand it, once installed, before applying a finish.

[Phil Landwer]

Also, I didn't mention the relief cuts on the bottom of the flooring.
I plan on also doing that, with the MM, and different plugs.

[Scott T Smith]

Phil, you're going to have a LOT of labor time involved in making this flooring; I hope that it works out for you financially.

[Carl Beckett]

Hi Phil,

There was a pretty extensive thread here a while back from someone that did a large batch of white oak flooring. Everything was broke down, including cost and time for each step. I dont remember who it was or would point you to the post, but maybe try a search or someone here will likely remember.

I found the thread very knowledgeable and I learned a lot, as Im sure I will following your experiences as well. (if you were closer I have a couple shapers I would just loan you to use)

[Van Huskey]

Hi Phil,

There was a pretty extensive thread here a while back from someone that did a large batch of white oak flooring. Everything was broke down, including cost and time for each step. I dont remember who it was or would point you to the post, but maybe try a search or someone here will likely remember.
)

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...r-me&highlight=

I think this is it

[Peter Quinn]

Take a close look at the edges of a commercial t&g floor board. This is not a glue joint, there is more geometry going on there. You want to take a full jointing cut on the edges when you make floor boards, one side typically has a slight back bevel below the wear layer and a slight reveal below the tongue slot. This leaves very little bearing surface on the boards edge. With a TS it's a tricky set up, you need to have very straight lumber very precisely milled and take off a precise amount on each side, gravity will not be in your favor. You need good in/out feed support. With a shaper it is easy to edge and precisely dimension in two operations. This is why I recommend you have the whole job planed, sorted, straigh lined, and organized before you tie up your TS with the molder head. Can you do the reliefs on the wood master? Well worth a set of knives iMo.

[Phil Landwer]

Phil, you're going to have a LOT of labor time involved in making this flooring; I hope that it works out for you financially.

Im retired, plus I have lots of cheap family labor, so I'm all good there....

[Phil Landwer]

Hi Phil,

There was a pretty extensive thread here a while back from someone that did a large batch of white oak flooring. Everything was broke down, including cost and time for each step. I dont remember who it was or would point you to the post, but maybe try a search or someone here will likely remember.

I found the thread very knowledgeable and I learned a lot, as Im sure I will following your experiences as well. (if you were closer I have a couple shapers I would just loan you to use)

I do have access to a Shop Fox W1812 moulder. Any way that could help me? I suppose I could feed my boards thru that, on edge, but the Magic Moulder is indeed pretty nice....