hardwood floor making process and tools

[Jeff Duncan]

I think the others have covered it pretty well, I'll just add another vote from another guy with a well equipped shop that it's not going to go as you expect it to. The biggest problem I think you'll have is that "you don't know what you don't know". Or in other words, until you've actually handled jobs milling at least several hundred board feet of lumber at a time, you really don't have a grasp on what it entails.

I would say if you want to buy the equipment for other uses anyway, and are really gung-ho on it, then start small. Pick the smallest room possible, maybe a couple hundred sq. ft.. Run that room through beginning to end and you'll start to get a handle on what's involved. Anything can be done if a person has enough drive to do it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's worth doing.

good luck,
JeffD

[Michael W. Clark]

I'll add something from a hobbyiest perspective. I think the pros and others have given you good information to spur you into looking at the economics a little differently.

I may be in the minority here, but Hobby woodworking, for me anyway, is not about saving money, because it rarely does. It is more about the ability to add customization, quality, and the enjoyment of the journy and end results. Having said that, I would encourage you to make this flooring job your own. It sounds like you are on that path to an extent with the wider boards. If you decide to do this, get creative, make it tasteful and add some customization. Use equipment that will be safe and up to the task, especially since you are new to this. In the grand scheme of the project, it will not take that much more effort (obviously dependign on how creative you get). If I were to put this much effort into something, I would want visitors to know its custom.

Good Luck,
Mike

[Peter Quinn]

First piece of equipment you need is a good moisture meter, generally when making flooring but definetly if buying from a local mill. I'd inquire if the material is kiln dried, if not is it air dried and to what %. If they give you that "whose asking" routine, like what's it to you it doesn't matter......bad place to source flooring material. As noted above the onus is on you to make sure the material is properly seasoned for your purpose....which for flooring to occupy conditioned living space means around 8% moisture content. Once you see the material you will have a better sense of the waste factor. If it's 50% I'd consider getting quotes from a different yard that can supply kD material at least hit and miss planed and one straight edge, or better yet gang ripped to your required widths, or if your purchasing randoms ripped wide as possible.

[JOSEPH RESTA]

Keith,
as you anticipated the price for the raw wood I had was unfortunatly for material not yet dried. an additional $0.40 -$0.60 for BL need to be added for the kiln.

[Michael Mayo]

So instead of $3000 for materials you are looking at $5400~ to purchase just the wood. I am all for doing everything myself but this would even give me the chills. I hope you re-think this and make some adjustments to your idea but if you do decide to go for broke I wish you all the luck in your project and definitely post pics.

[mreza Salav]

Some people know me here that I make things many won't and have better machinery than what you have and I guess more experience but there is no way in the hot place I'd even consider making flooring. I've done enough work to know that there is no way I can save money or build a better product or do it faster than what is readily available. There are soooooooo many factors you are not accounting for. If you have not dimensioned a large pack of wood you won't believe how much just emptying the dust bin is going to slow you down.
Others have said it better than me here but I am on the camp that building flooring just doesn't make sense (unless the wood is special and rare or has some special value to you personally).

[Peter Quinn]

Here's an example. My uncle bought my grandmothers house when she passed, a beautiful old Victorian split into 3 apartments years ago. He had a vision to restore it to original. There was a monster beech tree eating the front yard, killing the driveway, had to go. So he had it felled, saved the trunks, made into lumber, searched for a flooring company to make the flooring. What better than to turn that tre that had shaded us so many hot summers into a fine floor to last another century! Very romantic. He got a price lets say of $6.75/SF to turn his green wood into flooring. Being a cheep scate of the first order, he found that a little high, the house was over 3000 SF...after all he had been to lumber liquidators and new what flooring cost! Tongue deep in cheek......So he asked for a price if he did not supply the wood........$7/SF. Even if the wood is FREE most of the value in a floor unless it is some rare and precious species is not the lumber, it's the labor, particularly if the wood is green and rough which makes it worth considerably less as a commodity. So as you are saving 15K on flooring, ask your self do you like making flooring? What else could you be doing to make money during that massive block of time spent handling boards that could make money to pay for flooring? I'm a cabinet maker, I'd rather work every weekend this year to pay for a new floor than spend half of them making it!

[JOSEPH RESTA]

After the research done and the valuable comments received by the forum I will say that my idea of making hardwood floor on such large scale is probably indefinitely at hold.
my next step has been calling the electrician to have a quote for a 220v in my garage. this would give me more options for machines and access the much larger pool of used ones.
thanks again

[Erik Loza]

...my next step has been calling the electrician to have a quote for a 220v in my garage...

That is a great choice, regardless of whether or not you decide to pursue the flooring project. Best of luck with it.

Erik Loza
Minimax USA

[David Nelson1]

That is a great choice, regardless of whether or not you decide to pursue the flooring project. Best of luck with it.

Erik Loza
Minimax USA

I totally agree with Mike I bought equipment twice because I didn't understand the requirements. Actually I didn't ask the forum till after the fact so you are ahead of the game.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Late to the party.

Joeseph - you have ended up in the right place.

Just to keep things in perspective -

The producers of flooring invest an amount of $$ in equipment that is nearly beyond belief. They do this because that is the only way to be profitable - you have to run giant volumes to keep the cost per LF in line.

For example - the molder takes rough material - already ripped to width - and does the work of a jointer, planer, and shaper in our world. But, in that world, it is 35' - 40' long, new approaches $500k for the molder only, and runs the flooring at 700 - 1,000 lineal feet per minute. There are versions that run much, much faster than thaat.

Think about that last number. Every second, you have 2 8' pieces of flooring. Then think about the material handling systems you need to be sure you run butt-to-butt through the molder. If you don't, you are wasting production capacity.

Then - you have to gang rip before the molder in feed. You have to defect cut after the molder outfeed. You have to stack and sort.


My point here is this: Like the old adage "Never get in an argument with people that purchase ink by the barrel", "Never think you can beat the industry on a commodity item that is produced at multiple pieces per second."

Give them their investment, and their profit margins, and be thankful they are there.

[Peter Quinn]

Late to the party.

Joeseph - you have ended up in the right place.

Just to keep things in perspective -

The producers of flooring invest an amount of $$ in equipment that is nearly beyond belief. They do this because that is the only way to be profitable - you have to run giant volumes to keep the cost per LF in line.

For example - the molder takes rough material - already ripped to width - and does the work of a jointer, planer, and shaper in our world. But, in that world, it is 35' - 40' long, new approaches $500k for the molder only, and runs the flooring at 700 - 1,000 lineal feet per minute. There are versions that run much, much faster than thaat.

Think about that last number. Every second, you have 2 8' pieces of flooring. Then think about the material handling systems you need to be sure you run butt-to-butt through the molder. If you don't, you are wasting production capacity.

Then - you have to gang rip before the molder in feed. You have to defect cut after the molder outfeed. You have to stack and sort.


My point here is this: Like the old adage "Never get in an argument with people that purchase ink by the barrel", "Never think you can beat the industry on a commodity item that is produced at multiple pieces per second."

Give them their investment, and their profit margins, and be thankful they are there.

Agreed, except for the 1000' per minute. That's a little fast I think, 50-100 LF per minute is more likely until you are into a massive machine which runs around 250k. Even a four knife molding head spinning at 20K rpm can only take so many cuts per inch. Last molder my former boss bought ran just under 100lf per minute, took 75 lineal feet of shop space, cost around $250k. You can easily run flooring on a much smaller machine, say a little weinig profimat or scmi, maybe $95k new, takes up 15 LF plus your in and out feed space, maybe 40 feet, plus an up cut defect line....plus a place to make pack of flooring until it's ready to move, plus 3500+ cfm's of chip collection......maybe an end matcher for wide plank, gets
Rich quick.

Joseph, good call on the not making flooring. Or at least furthering the investigation before proceeding. If you change your mind do so well informed!

[Kent A Bathurst]

Peter - No argument with you. Simply adding more info to the discussion -

There are machines designed specifically for flooring. They would not really fit any other molded product.

9 head. Maybe 11 head. The big trick is there are two pairs of side heads that are what they call "opposing". THose pairs are directly opposite each other. Not the design you would find in a "normal" molder, where there is only one pair of side heads, and they are not opposing - - you pass one, and then the other, in sequence. Flooring profiles, at those speeds, require this unique configuration.

You can run flooring on a Profimat. $95 k is pretty high for that machine, in my experinece. I run specialty flooring [not commodity indoor flooring] on a Profimat at one plant @ 30 - 50 LFPM. I run it on an H22 at another plant @ 120 LFPM.

But - those are speciatly flooring products. Plus, at that investment and feed speeds, we match our customer's demand. NO need for anything different, plus we run other products on those molders.

Trust me - the big-time Domestic flooring producers are at, or near, 1,000 LFPM. You go to Europe, you will see machinery running at twice that. No kidding - twice. Mind-boggling. The equipment and floor space to simply feed a molder at that speed is fascinating.

I've got 9 molders at 4 plants, with 2 new ones coming in the next 45 days [220 LFPM]. They are not "my" plants. I am the guy that does factory designs and layouts, productivity improvements, equipment specification and purchasing, equipment installation and training, blah, blah, blah. I am neck-deep in molder specs and performance at the moment. 2 new ones [220 LFPM] installed in the past 9 months.

The thing that always knocks the "fancy titles" off stride is someone tosses out a number for a new molder - $165 is typical for us. And then I come back with the entire project budget. The molder is usually about 40% of the total, once you deal with infeed systems, outfeed systems, cutterheads and tooling, electric, and - the biggie - dust systems.

[Mel Fulks]

Kent, There is a BIG company near you that could use some moulder expertise. Every time one orders stock mouldings the profiles don't match the last stuff.