Hardwood Flooring, Part Deux: Borders, Russian Fields, Medalians, etc.

[Dev Emch]

Welcome to the thread on insane flooring.....

First of all, try the website by Oskosh Flooring in WI. They do lots of medalians and border work. This will give you an idea of what these items actually look like.

Also gaining in popularity is the use of stone and tile border elements in conjuction with wood. I dont know much about this topic other than the fact that you need to use silicone based chalk between the wood and the stone to compensate for differences in expansion.

As for the rest. First of all, let me say that I work with the 3/4 inch standard. I really dont like to deal with the thinner flooring products esp. the simulated laminate, click flooring, floating floors and "ENGINEERED" flooring. This junk just does not hold up. I have seen too much of the older 3/4 inch solid work in homes that are 50 to 150 or so years old. Sometimes, all that is needed is a refinish and the flooring looks just grand. The most prevalent failure or cause for pulling up flooring is water damage. Solid stock can take all sorts of abuse over a very long time frame but water damage can ruin a brand new floor in days or less! And so far, the two sources for water damage that I have run into are leaking dishwashers and frost damaged base board radiators.

When it comes to doing decor in flooring, the sky is the limit. First of all, woodworkers should realize that your *NOT* limited to just using moulder run strip flooring. But do realize that strip flooring can move and placing boards in the floor at various angles using different species and mixing flat sawn and quarter sawn results in different modes of expansion which can result in pops if your not careful. But by following some basic rules, you can control this.

First of all, a 3/4 inch thick strip floor has three basic regions in its thickness. You have a nice durable 1/4 inch thick wear layer. This is the edge you have to protect and work with extreme precision. Then you have a 1/4 inch region which houses the tonque and groove. Lastly you have the 1/4 inch base layer which contains the relief cuts on the back of the flooring. These cuts allow the flooring to sit better on the vapor barrier and subfloor and they allow for under floor ventilation. The main thing to remember is that tiny pops can be prevented by making sure that all flooring items have good tonque and groove joints. When doing fancy inlays, boarders and what not, you will wind up cutting grooves on both sides of the flooring and using a baltic birch spline to tonque and groove these items together. THIS IS VERY VERY IMPORTANT!

In fact, I designed a special router bit that allows me to regroove the flooring while its layed down. This way, you can use the router to cut out the design element in an existing floor and then come back and regroove it for the splines. A ball bearing rides the face of the wear layer while a four cutter brazed carbide head excavates the new groove. Most groovers are mandrile based and the retaining nut at the buttom will interfere with the subfloor while trying to do regroove the flooring. Mine is four knives and runs on a 1/2 inch shank. I did this a couple of years ago and the router bit is still working like a charm. By the way, the standard nails used in flooring guns are soft steel. I have actually cut through a number of them with my carbide tipped router bit with no problems. Just take it nice and slow. In going through the new Festool catalog, you will see a gent running a festool router on flooring that is in place doing the same operation. I still have to find out what bit they are using but it sounds like the folks at festool have had a similar problem and come up with a similar router bit.

Most flooring decor items are not solid wood. Only the wear layer is solid wood. Often, these items are backed up with baltic birch plywood. In denver, a company called Legacy Hardwood Flooring has taken this concept one step further. They are making tiles similar to the elaborate flooring found in the old russian buildings. These are insane marquetry patterns that will totally blow your mind. In fact, the DIY program called Trade School outlined one such project. Lucky for us, Legacy is a denver based business.

In general, one starts with nice 1/4 inch thick solid lumber milled and cut to the basic pattern. These are then laminated using yellow glue to a 1/4 inch baltic birch substrate. Then, these are precision trimmed into various sub elements. Later, these sub-elements are assembled into the final pattern and they themselves are laminated to a larger 1/4 inch substrate that forms the actual design element being made. That may be a border element, a central medalian or even a 2 foot square marquetry tile. The use of two 1/4 inch baltic birch subtrates makes the creation of these items easier and also makes these items much less prone to hummidity variations. Its like assembling a puzzle. But in this case, every joint has to be air tight accurate. Its easier to assemble sub sections first, then trim these to fit later. In other words, small chunks of wood assemble into slighter larger chunks which in turn are trimmed and assembled into the final design element. Work carefully and keep your jointer next to you and anyone of us can produce these elements!

Lastly, some decor items are glued to the floor. Some are installed like regular strip flooring. Borders for example should have splines as its easy to work with splines. If your installing a border in an existing floor, that makes it a bit harder and you may have to glue the borders down. Also, you may get some mini pops because you dont have the full bore splining in this installation. Here the pops are comming from movment in the strip flooring and not so much from the decor element. The decor element is going to be more stable. The best time to install border is when the floor is being installed for the first time.

Medalians are a bit more difficult. Here its easier to just install the flooring and then come back with a router and rout out a precision circle after the fact. Also, because of the round nature of medalians, your not going to be able to use splines to full advantage. Splines are very hard to work with on a round object. But again, if you cut the hole such that the medalian just drops in and does not need to be pounded into place, you should be O.K. Also note that you need to trim out the vapor barrier and really clean up the surface of the sub floor to accept the medalian as you cannot nail these down.

If any of you have other ways of making these items and installing these items, please let us all know. These examples of hardwood floors are eye popping wonderful and I am always looking for new tricks.

So I have jaw jacked enough here on this thread... lets get some others to comment on this topic...

[Richard Wolf]

Medalians are a bit more difficult. Here its easier to just install the flooring and then come back with a router and rout out a precision circle after the fact. ..

As always Dev, you are a wealth of information. I would just like to add that when installing medalians some preplaning will go a long way. By laying out the location of the medalian before installation of the strip flooring you can avoid nailing in the area where the medalian will end up. I realize that flooring nails are relitively soft, they are still steel are should be avoided with the router bit. Also with no nails in the field it is easier to remove the routed out space in the strip flooring.
Medalians and accent strips are items that can make a typical hardwoood floor look like something out of a Manor House. Accent strips being relitively inexpensive, medalians costing sometimes more than the rest of the floor.

Richard

[Dev Emch]

Richard, you are totally correct on this one. If you know a medalian is comming, avoid the nails in the area of the medalian as Richard said.

Also, when cutting a hole into an existing floor with a router, there are some tricks to remember. Rout down to just the wear layer first. The heads of all nails are just below the wear layer tucked neatly into the nail groove of the tonque. Once you have routed out the wear layer, you can see where your nails are and deal with them from there if needed. Also bear in mind that the nails are at about 45 degrees of angle. So even though you may have cut through them, they still have a portion left that may take a bit of prying to get the floor up.

Another thing I have done is this. In fact, I have done this often on finished floors in which I have cut holes for decor items. Once you have routed down to the wear layer and you can see any exposed heads, take your nail set and drive the nails down. You can go all the way or you can just drive them far enough to keep them out of the way of your router.

Richard is correct. Yes, we can cut these nails with carbide but the best course of action is to avoid them in the first place. Your expensive router bits will last longer that way.