Wood Floor for Kitchen

[TomHoffman]

They are on my computer, I think they are too big, I will retake with less resolution on camera.

[TomHoffman]

Try Try again...

Here they are at last.

Looks like it worked, will tell the tale in the next installment.

Tom...

[JPG]

Take em at the higher resolution.

Use a free program called Irfanview to crop and/or resize a copy for posting.

[TomHoffman]

Thanks I will...

[BuckeyeDennis]

Tom, that's gonna look great! But I'm curious .. with boards that wide, is expansion/contraction a concern?

[TomHoffman]

Tom, that's gonna look great! But I'm curious .. with boards that wide, is expansion/contraction a concern?

Yes, I am sure you are right. In Iowa we have very dry houses in the winter and High humidity in the summer. I am sure there will be movement, we are face nailing 4 nails across the board so a board may crack, and if so it's just more character. The boards are all cut along each side with a spine cutter router bit that fits a #20 biscuit. the biscuits are every foot or so. Try as we might we ended up with between a 1/16 - 1/8" between some boards because of some slight bowing in a board or 3. That will allow for some wood swelling in the summers and back to original installation (now) width in the winter.

I guess we will see. You have to know we have been living with painted OSB since 2011 when we tore out the old sawdust kitchen cabinets and put in my custom built W Oak Tiger Stripe solid wood cabinets. So my wife is tickled to see the new floor going in now. We were full time RV'ers for 3.5 years for her job, so the kitchen got put back to the end of the line on the Honey Do list, now it's time to get it done.

[BuckeyeDennis]

This discussion motivated me to do a little research. For my secret-room project, I'm paneling the walls in cherry, and doing the floors in red oak. Most of the boards will be about 6" wide, and I plan to tongue-and-groove them all. My T&G router bit set will cut both the tongues and grooves a maximum of 7/16" deep, but I didn't know how deep I actually needed to cut them, or how much spacing to leave between boards when installing.

It turns out that Nick Engler has a nice tutorial on this, on his Workshop Companion site.

[JPG]

This discussion motivated me to do a little research. For my secret-room project, I'm paneling the walls in cherry, and doing the floors in red oak. Most of the boards will be about 6" wide, and I plan to tongue-and-groove them all. My T&G router bit set will cut both the tongues and grooves a maximum of 7/16" deep, but I didn't know how deep I actually needed to cut them, or how much spacing to leave between boards when installing.

It turns out that Nick Engler has a nice tutorial on this, on his Workshop Companion site.

Without looking I guess the time of year matters as to how large a gap. Depending upon that I guess a nickel or a dime gap.

Adding a bevel helps disguise the gap as well as 'decorative' grooves/beads.

[TomHoffman]

This discussion motivated me to do a little research. For my secret-room project, I'm paneling the walls in cherry, and doing the floors in red oak. Most of the boards will be about 6" wide, and I plan to tongue-and-groove them all. My T&G router bit set will cut both the tongues and grooves a maximum of 7/16" deep, but I didn't know how deep I actually needed to cut them, or how much spacing to leave between boards when installing.

It turns out that Nick Engler has a nice tutorial on this, on his Workshop Companion site.

Just a point. Make very sure all boards are exactly the same thickness and width and if you can run them over a jointer before running the parallel edge through your table saw. Slightly different widths and or thicknesses could cause a nightmare to deal with. If you are working with rough from the mill lumber, you will need to joint the face as well as running the opposing face through a planer. It's a lot of work but the satisfaction is worth it. All the afore said is why I elected to go with commercial #2 pine partially for the look and the uniqueness of a 12" no butt joint floor some of my boards are 15' long. Have fun... We are sanding today.

[TomHoffman]

This discussion motivated me to do a little research. For my secret-room project, I'm paneling the walls in cherry, and doing the floors in red oak. Most of the boards will be about 6" wide, and I plan to tongue-and-groove them all. My T&G router bit set will cut both the tongues and grooves a maximum of 7/16" deep, but I didn't know how deep I actually needed to cut them, or how much spacing to leave between boards when installing.

It turns out that Nick Engler has a nice tutorial on this, on his Workshop Companion site.

Your bit set should come with roller guide bearing on the top, this will allow you to automatically cut to the correct depth as set by the guide bearing so the bit will either leave a slight gap or not, most likely there will be a small gap that will then look uniform and give the boards a tiny bit of room to move. Harbor Freight has a good Floor Nailer for slightly more than it cost to rent. I had one until I lent it to a friend and now he moved to Ohio. Oh'well...