Some questions on wood floor underlayment, etc.

[LazyPup]

A few years ago I had a chance to help install the flooring on a school gymnasium. We used the type of flooring nailer that you manually hit with a rubber mallet.

When i worked on that project biscuits had just recently come on the scene and they used biscuits to interlock the ends of the boards and the flooring nailers on the runs.

I remember that the flooring nailers could only nail the boards up to about 18 inches from the last wall, but for the life of me, i dont recall how they secured that last 18 inches.

I had a chance to see one of the pneumatic floor nailers work today. The flooring guys told me they dont really care for it and only use it on cheaper jobs.

The old style manual flooring nailers have a big rubber bumper on the top of the hammer head. It is set down on the face of the board and as you strike the hammer it jams the board down and back against the next one before it sets the nail. In that manner they get a very tight fit.

The pneumatics only drive the nail, they dont have that ram in place function and according to the flooring guys it is very difficult to learn how to get the flooring tight.

[mrcaptainbob]

Hayzee, that's what I was thinking, too. And the bowtie itself could be cut in a long strip and then cut to lengths as needed. These would really look neat. Almost like inlay. Speaking of floors...I worked with a propainter many decades ago. He was telling me about leaving oak flooring out on the ground for a year before it was installed in a 'fancy-shmancy' house. Since there were'nt enough worm holes as desired, they had to hand drill some more. After the floor was layed and sanded, they painted it black an wiped it clean after a short time. Then they painted it white after the black dried and then wiped that clean. After that dried they put several coats of varnish to it. Sounds pretty exotic....

[HayZee518]

Bow tie connectors, hmm, I could do that with my router!

[mrcaptainbob]

YEs, PlumBob, I agree with you on that work part! There sure are some fine craftsmen around that can do that kind of stuff. The floor we have appears to have been handled in some fixture that drilled the holes in the ends all at the same distance from the ends and sides of the boards. The boards alternate between 2 1/4 and 3 1/4 and all have random lengths. It's t&g and looks pretty good.

[PlumBob]

I'm not going to let my wife see your last post, Cpn'Bob. Either one of those sounds absolutely beautiful, and then I'd be off on a project that would take me a year.

We have t&g maple in our living room and dining room, from 1917. I don't think I'd do anything except t&g if I ever had to do that, and I definitely would use a pneumatic nailer!

PB

[mrcaptainbob]

Our living room and dining room are done in dark oak with the walnut plugs. Looks really nice. My favorite is a floor I saw a few years ago: light oak boards, with the ends held by bowtie shaped plugs of walnut in the dovetailed ends and the sides were vertically splined with a third color wood.

[HayZee518]

T&G is the most practical. Half lapped I don't think would lay flat. Non grooved maple would need to be clamped tight with wedges and nailed through the face. (They did that in a textile plant I worked in) You might get an aesthetically pleasing effect if you counterbore where the nails go and then use plugs, cut flush and sanded. Lot of work though.

[mrcaptainbob]

Yeah, PlumBob, I go along with the way t & g is applied, but in your post you said it was not t & g. That's why the question. If it's not t and g, then what manner of attachement is used? Or, since it's reclaimed, does that mean the edges were (the t and g's) were cut off?

[HayZee518]

I've used a flooring nailer when I was putting in a maple floor in one of my houses. They're sort of cut nails in a strip that's loaded staple style in the nailer. The shoe fits the edge of the board then you whack the rubber cap on it with a stout mallet. One shot it's done! But they now have pneumatic nailers.

[PlumBob]

LP, have you ever actually done this? Use a flooring nailer, that is? I've considered it, but just never quite gotten there.

PlumBob

[LazyPup]

When tongue and grooved flooring is laid with the flooring nailer the boards only get nails on one side of the board, they are loosely fit into the grove on the other side. By securing them in that fasion the boards are individually locked in place while the opposite side of the board is still free to float a bit in the groove to allow for expansion from humidity.

[PlumBob]

Huge caveat, Cap'nBob, I've never done this.....

But my understanding is that, take tongue & groove for instance, each plank is nailed in individually, w/ a nail going into the edge and from there into the sub-flooring. When set, the nail is set into the edge of the plank, and not the top. The nail actually goes in at an angle: 1) to get a bigger bite of the flooring plank, 2) so that the process of setting it into the subflooring pulls it up tight against the plank preceeding it, 3) that the angled nail has more holding power into the subfloor, than a nail straight up and down would have, and finally, 4) there's no nail-head to see (or catch your sock on).

The tongue (or groove) holds one side of the plank, the nail holds the other. In retrospect, I suppose a biscuit would serve the same purpose as a t-n-g.

They make nailers that allow you to pop the nail into the edge of the plank, at an angle, and then the same hammer-blow snugs the plank up next to the one before it.

Again, that's my understanding of something I've never done!

PlumBob

[mrcaptainbob]

Okay. I agree with that. But then it occurs to me....how were those, (or any basketball flooring) held in place?

[PlumBob]

I'd agree w/ HayZee. Edge joining is a real pain.

I'd do lap joints, or tongue and groove, and nail as w/ any standard hardwood plank floor installation.

PlumBob

[HayZee518]

I would think the floor boards would buckle with the use of biscuits. I know when I edge glue wide boards together, applying tension with clamps tend to push the boards upward. If you have the means to cut a tongue and groove in the edges, it would make nore sense in using this type of joint in that you can nail at an angle through the groove and keep the nail heads hidden. www.rockler.com has a tongue and groove cutter for a 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch shank router.