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planks for barn floor

Started by fivedogs, August 16, 2017, 01:14:24 PM

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fivedogs

we are currently   milling   3 inch  ash  planks   for the floor of our  barn  but we are beginning  to run  out

of  good  logs   to finish   the  job   we are going to drive on this floor     we have  some  white  birch   poplar

white  pine    and some  hemlock    could  the white birch   hold up  or the poplar   i live in the Adirondack region of

  New York     to give you an  idea of our poplar  type.  Any advice you can give  would  be appreciated.

  We also  have  some  nice  maples  but would like to   keep  them  to tap  later  in life   thanks  for the help

Brian_Weekley

I know sometimes it has shake, but I have hemlock cut for my barn floor.  I think it was often used for factory floors.

http://www.woodmagazine.com/materials-guide/lumber/wood-species-2/hemlock
e aho laula

MbfVA

I toured the old & vacant American Tobacco Co factories in the East End of Richmond Virginia in the 1980s.  Immensely thick parquet floors made out of rock maple. Really, really impressive, thought amazingly (wastefully?) overbuilt.

This is an interesting thread. What about ground contact, insects, etc.? I am assuming this is not going on top of the slab of course?   Maybe there's a basement of sorts underneath? 3 inch planks are pretty substantial.
www.ordinary.com (really)

Don P

I'd go to the wood handbook for something like that to get a sense of the relative strengths, these are not the allowable design values they are the properties of the clear wood itself, independent of grade and safety factors. I don't know which poplar you have, look it up in a tree guide.

Paper birch ;
Specific gravity .55
Modulus of rupture 12,300 psi
Modulus of elasticity 1.59
shear 600 psi

White ash
SG .60
MOR 15,000
E 1.74
Fv 1,910

White pine
SG .35
MOR 8,600
E 1.24
Fv 900

Eastern Hemlock
SG .40
MOR 8,900
E 1.2
Fv 1060

Red Maple
SG .54
MOR 13.400
E 1.64
Fv 1850

Sugar maple
SG .63
MOR 15,800
E 1.83
Fv 2330

The only wood that holds a candle to the ash is the maples, which is what baseball bat manufacturers figured too. I'd try to find some maple or more ash locally and borate the wood to frustrate the bugs.

btulloh

Quote from: MbfVA on August 16, 2017, 03:42:12 PM
I toured the old & vacant American Tobacco Co factories in the East End of Richmond Virginia in the 1980s.  Immensely thick parquet floors made out of rock maple. Really, really impressive, thought amazingly (wastefully?) overbuilt.


Those parquet floors were laid on 3x14 long leaf heart pine joists cut in George around 1900.  My father was with American from 1937 until 1975.  With a four year time-out to visit the Pacific in 1941.  I still have a couple of those joists.  But no parquet that I know of.
HM126

Don P

My wife's dad was a mechanical engineer for American in Durham from ~'67-'84. She said it was strange going into what are now shops and going through the door that was her Dad's office. When she went back to school at State we were poor young newlyweds (as opposed to poor oldieweds) she won a Phillip Morris scholarship... we never told him  :D.

fivedogs

thanks  for the replys  the  floor  sits  above   a dug  out  basement   with  a cement  floor   i think  if  i  look  hard  enough  i can   find  some  more

ash   hate  to  cut  those  maples   i do  have  some  black  cherry  also  but  couldn't use  that  on a floor

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