Has anyone ever bought hardwood flooring to use as stock?

[Jared Walters]

I'm just curious... it's not that expensive and I assume it's very well dimensioned already.

[William Adams]

I used scraps when I was a Kid. Cutting off the tongue and grooves was a pain and felt wasteful, even for scrap.

[Rick Potter]

If you try it, I would suggest using unfinished. The finish is super hard on the flooring.

[Steve Kohn]

I've been working on a house to be sold. The flooring contractor is putting in some wood flooring. The bundles of oak flooring he brought in amazed me. There were pieces as short as 6 inches long, and the longest was maybe 3 feet long. It seems to me that you're not going to get much useable stock out of that.

[Tom Blank]

We had some carpet replaced with oak flooring, I have used some of the leftovers on small projects and it works fine. Got some prefinished walnut flooring scraps from a buddy. In addition to being hard, as Rick noted, the grain filler was very abrasive and ate up a set of planer knives and the blade on one hand plane before I figured out the problem.

[Bill ThompsonNM]

I've picked up a bunch of hard maple flooring on more than one occasion. Great for Jigs and smaller projects like boxes. It will probably finish out too thin for larger projects. You can frequently get it cheap on closeouts at flooring distributors or from homeowners on Craigslist. Usually pretty good wood for the money.

Jump right in!

[Edward Oleen]

Hear! Hear! Unfinished is the easiest to work with, but getting harder to find. The prefinished stuff is overwhelming the market in my area - it is far easier for the contractor, since he doesn't have to worry about sanding and staining and all the rest: it's good to go right out of the box - all it needs is installation. He looses machinery costs, finishing costs, etc. Not just machines, but labor, too.

And in a very down market, such as we may just be getting out of, that is important...

There is artificial stuff coming on the market. Forget it. It ain't wood - it's some sort of plastic composite. The one piece I tried stank up the place when I tried to run it through the table saw. Maybe I wasn't moving it rapidly enough, 'cause it gummed up the blade.

Good Luck.

[Belton Garvin]

I've got some scraps leftover from my install last year. Multicolored bamboo. It's really hard to cut or nail, but I thought about making a glued up cutting board. I would have to run it through the planer to remove the finish...scared to run it because of the super hard aluminum oxide finish...not to mention respirator being required.

Does anyone have any experience milling the bamboo material?

[roger wiegand]

I've got a pile of leftover birdseye maple flooring from doing the last two houses in 2-1/4, 3, and 4" widths in 3 to 12 foot lengths. Some of it is really nicely figured, but ripping off the tongues and grooves and planing the back relief flat is painful and produces thin, narrow stock. I probably have enough to last me two more lifetimes but can't bring myself to throw it away.

[John C Bush]

Saved the Santos Mahogany flooring from our old house. 5 1/2" and 71/2" wide planks with many 10 footesr. I've made lots of pieces with it. Boxes, sideboards, even helped remodel a friends boat. After milling off the bottom relief, have about 5/8" thickness to use. Santos Mahog. is not a true Mahog. but it mills and finishes nicely. Has a delightful aroma when milling. House was built in '53 lots of wood features were used in the design but don't see much mahog flooring now.

[Joe Kieve]

I've used hardwood flooring samples from The BORG, maple, oak, tiger wood, Brazilian cherry, etc. to make pens. At a quarter each, that's pretty inexpensive for a pen blank.