hardwood floor making process and tools

[JOSEPH RESTA]

I have little experience with woodworking and I am now fixated on the idea of making hardwood floors from raw lumber. This would be my first big project. To do this I plan to purchase a 10 inches jointer/planer ( Rikon 25-010 1.5 HP), a shaper ( Grizzly G1035P 1.5 HP) and a powerfeeder (shop fox 1/4 HP) . I came up with this selection because they seem the most powerful tools available in the 110/220 Volts category. I do not have 220 volts yet.
My goal is to produce 3/4 inch thick floor from 6, 8 and some 10 inches wide raw planks (red oak?)
From a minimum of 700 to a max of 3000 sq ft as far amount coverage.


please review this process:
- miter saw to trim the 2 short ends of the boards
- jointer to finish one small and one large side of the wood.
- table saw to cut the other side of the board and dimension it
- jointer to finish the side just cut by the table saw
- table saw to create 3-4 grooves on the underside of the wood
- shaper with a tongue and groove bit along the 2 long sides of the boad.
- planer for a partial finish of the top side of the board that after the floor installation is done will be properly sanded.


I understand that this will take time. I am estimating about 30 hours for 1000 sq ft averaging 250 boards of 7 ft in length. Preparing tongue and grove to be done with the powerfeeder slowest speed possible (6ft/min) for accuracy. I am worried about the blades and bits getting dull in the process.
More powerful jointer and shaper would make it faster but I am not sure it make sense for me as first timer (machine cost, 220v modification at home and possible interest in woodworking fading)
Apart the reward of doing this myself there is also an economical incentive as I expect otherwise at least $15000 in cost for the purchase of floor (3000 sq ft)
I would appreciate your comments on the selection of the tools I listed and the feasibility of the project of doing floors in a DIY setting.
thank you

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Welcome to the creek Joseph.

You certainly aren't afraid of a pile of lumber, that sounds like a lot of work. I'll let the pros opine about your technique, but I'm going to play devils advocate about the financials. If you are going red oak, you can buy and install and finish it for less than $5/sqft, if you are a bit opportunistic. Of course, that won't get you the random widths. Tools cost too, so does time, so the cost of making it yourself is rather a false economy.

Now, if you just want to for the sake of doing it yourself, have fun, but you probably won't save any money.

[Keith Weber]

Wow! That's a LOT of work for a first-timer. I agree with Steve that you're probably not going to be saving any money, but if you're going to enjoy the journey, then that's what it's all about. I'll be incredibly impressed, however, if you can produce 1000 sq. ft. of flooring in 30 hours. If you do go ahead with it, please keep track. I'm curious as to how much time it would take you.

As far as your technique, I'd offer a couple of suggestions...

When using the jointer, technically, you should joint a flat side of the board first, and then use this side against the fence to do an edge. This will give you a 90-degree corner. If you do it the other way, it may not give you 90-degrees depending on how twisted your board was when starting. You may have already been thinking this, but you mentioned the small side (edge) in your sentence first, so I'm not sure if you were implying that the edge would come first.

Planer goes after the jointing of two sides. This will give you a consistent thickness and ensures a face parallel to the the jointed face. You need to do this BEFORE taking the board to the shaper. You'll need a consistent thickness to make the T&G alignment work properly.

You didn't mention the quality of your table saw, but assuming that it is decent enough to cut a straight edge on the board, I would not joint that edge to remove saw marks. You're going to be feeding that edge through the shaper anyway, and it will be hidden inside the joint. If your jointer set up and technique are not perfect, you could taper the board giving you an inconsistent width. This would give you issues upon installation. If your tablesaw is cheap table top version that makes it hard to give you a straight edge, an alternative way would be to set up your shaper with an outboard fence clamped to the front of the shaper and use a straight bit to "joint" to a constant width. If you were to do this, you need to use a powerfeed (do not do by hand), and you need to hold the work against the fence (ie. with featherboards).

Finally, just a curiosity question. You mentioned that you would cut three grooves in the back of each board with the tablesaw. Are you planning on using a moulding blade in your saw for this, or are you using a cove-cutting technique with an angled fence, or are you just cutting straight (not curved) kerfs?

[Mark Bolton]

Search the archives. This topic has been beaten to death here and covered extensively with many many posts identical to this.

[Peter Quinn]

From rough lumber......fools errand with home shop equipment. 1000sf finished in 30'hours? I have much better equipment than you describe and couldn't do it in twice that....and I used to do it for a living. Not a discouragement, but until you have put wood to machine and then tried to nail down this end product time estimates are hard to deduce. My first though.....you need a 10,000 pack of trash bags to hold the chips. Waste removal will quickly become a major part of the task. Straightening boards on a jointer is not a great plan. Either make a sled on the table saw or use a hand skill saw or track saw to establish the first edge. Honestly you should get your material straight lined and hit and miss planed, this will make the material more expensive but it's the best value in the whole operation. And you need to make the second shaper pass with a back fence to establish final width, avoid taper and keep widths perfectly consistent. Learn what a back fence is. That shaper is barely adequate, it will be a struggle.

[David Nelson1]

Listen to what Peter has to say. I was given the same advise, but decided to continue with my project anyway. # 1 reason was because I couldn't buy what I wanted 2nd was a reason to buy the equipment, and last but not least I had the extra time to drag it out.

I didn't see anyone mention waste count on close to 50%. I used reclaimed warped and crooked red and white oak so if your a bit more picky your mileage may differ. BTW I'm still not done I have the living, dining, and kitchen to contend with still.

My post is here

[Kevin Mazzocco]

Flooring can be a breeze to install or a total nightmarish fight. It's got to be mostly straight, milled perfectly and very consistent as to width, thickness, t&g alignment, etc. etc. Personally, I'd go to LL and pay good money for a good product and be done with it. I once bought a discounted stack of oak flooring from my local Habitat for Humanity, only to fight with it and I still have about 50% of it laying around. Since then I've bought flooring from two different reputable sources and the install and finished products have been close to perfect without the fight. Nothing is free in life, not even lunch, and certainly not flooring. I'd leave the milling to the mills and get on with more interesting projects. That's my $0.02

[Bradley Gray]

Make that $.04 for buying flooring or buy 3 or 4 of each of the machines you mentioned. Might want to see what the divorce is gonna cost also...

[Rod Sheridan]

Strangely enough, I'm in the middle of making hardwood flooring for my living and dining rooms, something I advised people against on this very forum.

So why did I change my mind? Well, as some may remember I made a sawmill to handle some ash logs from the townhouse complex, and the wood is now becoming flooring.

As I knew it would be, it's a stack of work.

I have 70% of it planed now, next is straight line rip and rip to width, then off to the shaper.

I used the stock feeder on the jointer, saved a ton of work, now the stock feeder will be used again for sawing and of course on the shaper.

I noticed that you want to run at 6 feet per minute??????? That will really dull your cutters, you should be 3 to 4 times that fast........Rod.

[JOSEPH RESTA]

Thank you Keith,
after reading your comments I have learned that:
- it is better to flat with the jointer the larger side of the board first (I would have done the smaller first)
- I had in mind to use the planer before the shaper but only on one sire (the bottom part), is it worth to use the planer also on the part that will be later sanded after the installation?
- I will eliminate the step where I use the jointer after the table saw cuts. My table saw is a cheap light one. I will put some heavier object and be careful with the thickness consistency. (12 inches digital caliber).
- Yes I will have a 1/4 powerfeeder used for table/shaper and most probably also the jointer (not sure i can do the small edge with a powerfeeder)
- as far as the grooves in the back I was thinking of just cutting straight kerfs. I can incline the blade if this is better

thank again for taking the time to give me these advices.
Joe

[JOSEPH RESTA]

Thank Peter,
- apart from the flooring project here discussed you basically are recommending as a general technique to straight both the short edges of the board with the table saw. I see.. I should use the shaper only for the bottom part of the board.. And will be faster too probably. I would like to avoid the refinement step of again running the boards with the shaper also considering that these edges will run through the shaper.
- I admit I did not consider the sawdust management issue
- as far as the shaper I was thinking of using slow speed 6ft/min to compensate the relative low power 1.5 HP

[Erik Loza]

Joseph, I sell industrial machinery for a living and agree with many folks here: It would be much, MUCH easier to just buy the flooring. My feeling is that it will cost you several-fold the time and money to do what you are talking about if you choose to go the DIY route. For example, I think you would quickly discover why most machines folks use to do profiling with on a production scale are 220V. It's your wallet and time and I respect that. Best of luck, whatever you decide to do.

Erik Loza
Minimax USA

[Jim German]

A good 1.5HP shaper should have no problem handling a much faster feed rate for a simple T&G.

Keep in mind that this is going to be very boring woodworking. You're just going to be running board after board through a shaper/jointer/planer/saw.

Lastly, that jointer/planer that you linked has a pretty small table to be jointing 7' boards. Depending on how rough the lumber you get is, you'll also be making a bunch of passes for each board. The rough lumber I get is almost 1-1/8" thick, and I usually only take a 1/32" off per pass on my 120V planer.

[Keith Weber]

Joe, the main purpose of the planer is to bring the board to a uniform thickness after jointing. The jointer will make a flat face, and this face MUST be placed face-down when fed into the planer. Both sides of your board will be machined. The first face will be machined by your jointer, the opposite face will be machined by your planer. If you only plane the face that you just did with the jointer, you will defeat the purpose of using the jointer, and you will end up with a board that will more than likely be twisted.

I would seriously take into consideration the concerns of others about buying ready-made flooring. I think that you're severely underestimating the amount of work that it will take to make 3000 sq. ft. of hardwood flooring from scratch. Personally, that's a project that I wouldn't want to tackle, and I'm equipped with a jointer, planer, saw, shaper, and widebelt sander, each with 7.5hp or more. For me, it's more of a time/workload thing, rather than an equipment thing. I'd just rather build things that are more fun to build. With a 115V machinery, I wouldn't even remotely consider a project like this. Not that it couldn't be done, but my guess is that you'd have to have the drive of an Olympic athlete to complete such a project without giving up before you finish.

[peter gagliardi]

A 1/4 hp feeder will not be able to handle the heft of those boards- look for a 1 hp. If your tablesaw is a portable- universal motor vs induction, with belt drive, you will burn it up long before you finish. In short, you don't have enough equipment to do this job. Not trying to discourage, but as the old saying goes, " never bring a knife to a gunfight!" Really applies here! You will have a large investment in lumber here, and if you can't get to a finished product, it will be wasted. I make flooring for a living, I have the proper equipment, and i still have a hard time competing against the big mills!