Rustic flooring

[TWebster]

I am considering using square cut yellow pine planks as flooring over subfloor with log chinking to fill 1/4" spaces between the planks. The cost for this planking is $.50 per foot vs $1.50 per foot for t&g flooring. Any thoughts about this idea. I'm a little concerned about final shrinkage leaving gaps but figure this ought to be minimal with kiln dried material and chinking.

[Dan]

Well, chinking sounds like a lot of work in a floor to me.  Do you have a router table or a table saw?  I would just put a tongue and groove on it myself.  You would loose some width from the board, but it should still come out way ahead of the price of t&g.

[glenn kangiser]

My suspension bridge between the kitchen and bedroom is rough sawn 2x 10 -width varies.  I haven't got to the point of chinking the cracks yet as that section is not finished.  One concern I would have is that the chinking is cleanable -not permanently sticky to catch dirt -etc,  I have a board counter that has clear silicone rubber in the cracks- it works pretty well.  Coated with clear finish.

Shrinkage in green takes 6 mos to a year to quit it seems- KD shouldn't be too bad.  Green pine shrinks about 3/4" per foot of width in my experience.

I agree with Dan on the T and G of your own or ship lap is easy for thinner boards.  I did the best with a skill saw with an edge ripping guide -cut down both edges of all first then cut strips off alternate sides.  Burned out a good router but I did about 2000 lf of it-last half with saw was best.

[John_M]

Glenn,

This idea of making my own flooring intrigues me.

Can you do shiplap flooring or is there a benefit to tongue and groove?  If you did it shiplap, what would you cut out for the strip?  3/8' maybe?  You could just use a dado blade right?

Would you need to plane the wood down or can that be done afterwards with a sander?

Might be a good excuse to buy yourself a nice little planer! or router.

[glenn kangiser]

If you use a dado blade on a table saw and your boards are long they get hard to handle with one person--better with two if you are both fairly well coordinated

3/8" may be enough if the wood is already dry.  I was doing it on wet boards just off the mill so had to go 7/8" and that was barely enough by the time they finished shrinking in about a year.  Most of my boards are 10 to 20 inches wide, full 3/4" thick..  I was using them mostly for interior walls or roof sheathing to support dirt.  Shiplapping was suggested by Mike Oehler to prevent open gaps between the boards on the ceiling.

I think if you are hand making them, shiplap is easier than t&g.  T&G would stay locked together better, but my rules allow rustic and shiplap has worked well.  Ring shank nails are better than screws for fastening wet boards - especially wet wood- the nails will allow shrinkage without much problem - regular nails may loosen- screws will often shear as the boards shrink.  (Screws will work good on dry wood- drywall screws are pretty brittle so I would use deck screws.  I like to use the nails because they are fast with a nail gun.)  The skilsaw method is easiest for one person as the boards are in a vise and the saw moves with you.  The router also works well this way but is slower, makes more chips and tends to burn up routers and bits after a lot of boards.  The saw is set so the kerf is in the waste piece.  When you cut off the waste piece you reset the saw shallow to only cut off the waste piece at the width you want.  I always use and set the ripping guide when doing this.  Set  it accurately for good laps.  Quality is fairly consistant once you get used to it.  When you are done with the saw you have a nice little strip left that you can use for something.  I use them for plastic hold down strips and window strips to keep they glass from falling out of frames- there is probably a better name for them!  1/4" by 1" staples go right through them and hold well.  With my rustic rules- screws or nail heads  are allowed to show and look fine- especially if done with care.  

My saw is a band saw and if kept sharp my rough sawn wood is pretty smooth.  A light sanding is good enough to clear finish, for a rustic to fairly smooth finish.  For a great finish run it through the planer.  Nearly all of it is good enough to hand sand if the boards are too big for the planer.  If you allow rustic then imperfections become character.  (and you don't have to work as hard) - Perfection is for people who have time to worry about it -- rustic is for the rest of us--.  Copyright 2005 GK -- I just had a vision of that being the new catch phrase of the 21st century.

Many modern restaurants pay good money for rough  sawn trim boards to make their place look rustic ----- I are rustic!!!  

[John_M]

Would there be a noticeable difference in the finished product with the flooring if you went with shiplap vs. tongue and groove?

What about the groove they cut in the flooring on the bottom side?  Would you need to include that?

[glenn kangiser]

From the top they would or could look similar.  There could be a little more edge variation up and down as the shiplap is not prevented from going up on one side -not keyed under the tongue to lock it down.  I haven't found that to be much problem though.

When you make your own shiplap edges are square unless you do another operation to make the beveled groove (unless you are using a shaper of some type and can handle the longer boards) .  I would use a router for the bevel to make it the size I wanted.  The bottom wouldn't show unless a combo ceiling floor on a second story, so I wouldn't worry about it.

[Dan]

I agree that shiplap is much easier and faster to make and I think would be wonderfull for walls and ceilings, but I think the structural advantages of the t&g locking the two together between joists would be the prefered alternative for floors, not allowing for as much flex.

my 2 cents.

Dan

[glenn kangiser]

I would have to agree with Dan that t&g would be the preferred alternative.  This article mentions router -dado head and shaper.  If you did the tongue and groove then you could also blind nail it so the heads wouldn't show-- less rustic.  Edges couldn't separate then either.

http://www.extremehowto.com/xh/article.asp?article_id=60135

I saw router bits on one site that would also do the v groove on material up to 1 1/8" thick.

Thinking about it a little more - if you keep your widths down there is not as much shrinkage per piece and it would also fit in the planer doing most of your finish work for you.  I usually work with wider boards and haven't got down to fine work yet.  Will I ever  Most of my floors are adobe but this could look real nice.  Maybe I'll have to do one.