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Tongue and Groove

Started by Brian_Weekley, December 31, 2012, 09:59:02 PM

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Brian_Weekley

I need to cut some tongue and groove in 1.5" thick boards.  I've manually cut tongue and groove in 3/4" and 1" boards with my T&G hand plane (Stanley 48).  However, this is too small (1/4" groove) for 1.5" thick boards.  I've seen adjustable tongue and groove router bits like the Freud 99-036, but this is still on the small side (3/8" max groove).  So, I'd like to hear your experience, recommendations, and success for cutting your own T&G.  Table saw with dado blade?  Router table with mortise bit?  Router alone with edge guide and a mortise bit?  Short of having a mill do it, a moulder/shaper is probably the best option, but I don't have one.  Of course, another option is using splines, but I'd prefer T&G.

Thanks,

Brian

:new_year:
e aho laula

pineywoods

For thick stuff, a dado blade in a table saw, or better yet a radal arm saw. But it does take 3 passes...
1995 Wood Mizer LT 40, Liquid cooled kawasaki,homebuilt hydraulics. Homebuilt solar dry kiln.  Woodmaster 718 planner, Kubota M4700 with homemade forks and winch, stihl  028, 029, Ms390
100k bd ft club.Charter member of The Grumpy old Men

Jay C. White Cloud

Hi Brian,

In 40 mm (~1.5") stock 5 mm (~.25") would be o.k.  10 mm (~.375") more than enough unless you are making a bath tube or something and even then it would probably be fine.  I just laid a pine floor 40 mm thick that spans a 4500 mm (~117") wide room.  Now I don't like t&G that much so I do tend to use splines more and that's what this floor received; hard wood splines about 6 mm (~.236") thick and about 18 mm (~.71") wide.  Did that help?

Regards,

Jay
"To posses an open mind, is to hold a key to many doors, and the ability to created doors where there were none before."

"When it is all said and done, they will have said they did it themselves."-teams response under a good leader.

Brian_Weekley

Quote from: pineywoods on December 31, 2012, 10:08:37 PM
For thick stuff, a dado blade in a table saw, or better yet a radal arm saw. But it does take 3 passes...

Pineywoods, I've used a radial arm saw, but don't own one.  Question:  are you feeding the boards flat on the table with the blade parallel to the table or are you using a high fence and feeding the board on edge with the blade raised up in the normal rip position?

Quote from: Jay C. White Cloud on December 31, 2012, 10:10:25 PM
In 40 mm stock 5 mm would be o.k.  10 mm more than enough unless you are making a bath tub or something and even then it would probably be fine.  I just laid a pine floor 40 mm thick that spans a 4500 mm wide room.  Now I don't like t&G that much so I do tend to use splines more and that's what this floor received; hard wood splines about 6 mm thick and about 18 mm wide.

Jay, what is your method of choice for cutting the grooves for your splines?  With hardwood splines, maybe 5 mm is OK, but it seems awfully thin for T&G in pine.

Thanks
e aho laula

Jay C. White Cloud

Hi Brian,

I use the big Festool Router, or smaller one for smaller stock.  I like hand tools also, and have never been to fond of Dado blades, though I know some folks love'm.   I tend to be a hand tool guy, so I treat my power tools like that...tool through material vs. material through tool.  Saw mill is tool through material, 300 mm (12") planner is tool through material, the list goes on. I do have a small table saw and thickness planner, but they are fare outnumbered by hand tools and hand power tools.

Regards,

Jay
"To posses an open mind, is to hold a key to many doors, and the ability to created doors where there were none before."

"When it is all said and done, they will have said they did it themselves."-teams response under a good leader.

pineywoods

Brian, I have both a table saw and a radial arm saw. Table saw works fine IF you have a good fence. Set the dado for 1/3 the thickness of the board, use it for all 3 passes. I have one of them adjustable wobble type dado blades which works ok. Radial arm saw, I like to rotate the head so the blade is horizontal, to do the groove but that requires some modification to the fence, which on my saw is just a chunk of 1X2. Cutting the tongue, I leave the blade vertical.
1995 Wood Mizer LT 40, Liquid cooled kawasaki,homebuilt hydraulics. Homebuilt solar dry kiln.  Woodmaster 718 planner, Kubota M4700 with homemade forks and winch, stihl  028, 029, Ms390
100k bd ft club.Charter member of The Grumpy old Men

shelbycharger400

Searched the web for splined hardwood flooring.
This does seem a better way to "save" more of the board by not loosing any to the tongue area.

My question is, If you make the flooring out of birch, red oak, Maple mix, would it matter what you use for the spline?   Hardwood with hardwood right?

Buying spline, and just keeping the fence setup to cut a grove on both sides of the stick would save a lot of time it seems.

Brian_Weekley

Thanks Pineywoods.  BTW, I just scored an old, but nice radial arm saw locally for <$50 on Craigslist today.  Since my table saw is in the basement, ripping 12 feet+ long boards can be challenging in my workshop.  Having an additional saw in my garage will give me plenty of space and be a nice addition to the family.

Jay, I also like the "tool through wood" approach.  However, my current router only has a 1/4 inch collet and does not accept an edge guide.  Time to update this tool!  However, a nice D-handle router, micro-adjust edge guide, and mortise bits needed is an investment.

Shelby, I have considered the spline approach also.  It does save board material and makes setup straight forward since you only have to cut the grooves.  I guess I was thinking if I have to make the splines too, it might not save me much time in the long run?  However, this option is still on the table.
e aho laula

Mooseherder

I don't know if this is going to work but I have a similar need Brian and will attempt with a router bit in my drill press.
I made a jig this afternoon to try.  It will take 2 people but my thought would be to sandwich the piece in between these two boards and try to use as a router table.  My odds aren't that great but it's worth a shot. :D



  

  

 

Jim_Rogers

I'd make the fences higher to try and hold the piece in line with the center line of the bit.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

Jim Rogers
Whatever you do, have fun doing it!
Woodmizer 1994 LT30HDG24 with 6' Bed Extension

Mooseherder

Yes, I had to cut the back board fence to 6 inches to allow the handle turn on the down spin.
Then when I notched it to the bottom piece it lost another 1 1/2 inches.  I hadn't planned on notching it when I was doing preliminary.
I'll use a bigger fence for the front as it should be safer. :)

shelbycharger400

not so shure that that drill press is going to work out.  Run it as fast as it can go. 
Routers run HIgh rpm

Mooseherder

I have a good router and probably should have spent my time making a jig for that instead. :D

beenthere

What are the dimensions of the tongue and the groove that you plan to make?

Do you have a table saw available? and a dado head?

I too would be concerned with the bit speed and the amount of wood you might be wanting to remove.
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

Brian_Weekley

Mooseherder, that's thinking out of the box.  However, I agree with Shelby--routers operate at >20,000 rpms.  My floor drill press only goes up to about 4,000 rpms.  I have a cheap, small router table, but the table is too small to run long stock through.  It's also a pain to accuately setup the depth and fence spacing.  That's why I was thinking clamping a board on edge and using an upright, handheld router with an edge guide might work pretty well.
e aho laula

Mooseherder

I have a table saw but without dado head and also have a radial arm saw.
The pieces are going to be 5/4 thick.
Brian, if you can take some pictures of what you come up with I would appreciate it.
Good luck with your project.

giant splinter

Brian
I think your best bet is a shaper in the 3 hp. range, I think it is the best tool to do T&G safely and without tear-out. I could not find my T&G tooling for my Delta but as I recall it is a one piece tool with replaceable bits that does both parts on one side when set to the correct spacing and height. Stack two boards on the table and run them through and flip them over and do the other sides, in two passes you have two 2"x6" x 1.5" T&G Boards of any length you need. The option of doing one board at a time is just as easy by lowering or raising the tool height. I bet you could rent one for your job some place, I was able to buy enough time at a local cabinet shop to get my work done before I bought my own shaper. some of the more powerful routers by now may have this capability with the 1/2" shafts and extra power these days. :new_year:
roll with it

shelbycharger400

If a router is out of your budget, look into a 2 flute endmill for "aluminum"  It wont take as much material, but it will work for the lower rpm . Its about $8 for the bit,  IT will drive you nuts, to the point of buying a 50-75 dollar used router.

canopy

I have used a half inch Makita router for T&G on a past project. It worked on a router table, but was tough going and a 2 man job. I wonder if sandwiching the board to process between 2 boards laid vertically as rails to slide the router over would work easier and could be done by 1 person--"tool through wood instead of wood through tool".

I have a couple other question about T&G:

How do you determine the best groove dimensions? And how much margin do you take from each side of the tongue for a comfortable fit? In my case I am using 15 x 2.5 cm boards 3M long for roof decking.

Also what strategy is best to account for shrinkage and expansion? In my case I will have about 6M rafter length that will be decked over.

frwinks

I t'ng'ed all of our 2" plank flooring using a table mounted bosch router and a set of Elite Tools adjustable bits.  They are the largest bits I could find, with a .5" cutting depth.
http://www.elitetools.ca/en/product/2-pc-multi-tongue-and-groove-router-bit-set-shank/


ely

i have a set of t-g bits for my shaper but i have done my entire house thus far with a dado blade on my table saw, instead of t-g i went with a half lap joint on all my walls and ceilings... time consuming in the least of words but it allows for small variances in wood thicknesses that would be greater problems with the t-g.

Brian_Weekley

Thought I'd give you an update on my T&G project and what I've come up with...

A special thanks to Pineywoods for suggesting the radial arm saw.  I hadn't thought of using one, mainly because I didn't have one!  One advantage is that you are able to rotate the motor so the blade is horizontal to the table.  This allows you to run boards through flat on the table and use a molding head on the edge to cut either the tongue or groove.  I located an old Dewalt RAS on Craigslist for $25.  This saw needed quite a bit of work—new table, motor bearings, etc.  However, I've almost got it ready to roll and I think it will be a good tool for the job.



You need a good, flat table surface and it's extremely important to properly tune a radial arm saw (table, fence, and saw blade level and square with each other).  Since this saw didn't have the table, I constructed a nice flat "torsion table"--a wooden frame sandwiched with hardboard:



I also picked up an old Delta molding head on ebay for $15.  BTW, you can still buy new molding heads and knife sets from Corob Cutters in New Hampshire (very reasonably priced).  I have to give them a plug because they're still made in the USA:

http://corobcutters.com/

They offer two different T&G knife sets:  one a straight tongue and groove and the other a wedge tongue and groove.  They also have other molding styles (not all shown in this picture):





I made a fence specifically for this molding work and modified the back table so the molding head can be lowered close to the table.  I also added some "board buddies" to hold the wood tight to the fence and help prevent kickback:



I'd love to share some actual results, but the outlet in the garage is only 15 A and the saw tends to trip the breaker.  Now I have to fish a larger circuit to the garage, but it's too cold to work out there right now.  Isn't it funny how one project turns into another?  Anyway, stay tuned and I'll share the results when I get it running...
e aho laula

Brian_Weekley

I wired my new garage outlet today and I finally have some results to share...

I just ran some rough cut 1.5 inch boards through my new radial arm setup and I'm very happy with how nice this molding head cuts!  The overall speed through the cutters is also very good.  First, I designate one side of the board as the "reference face" (i.e., bottom side of the flooring).  You must keep the reference face on the table for both the tongue and groove edge cut passes.  It's more important to make sure the groove is cut full depth along the entire length of the board than the tongue width.  If there's a portion of the board that doesn't have the groove cut full depth and it mates with another board with a full width tongue, the boards will not fit tight and you will end up with a noticeable gap between the boards.  Therefore, I sight down the boards and determine if the board has a bow one way or the other.  I cut the grooves on the convex side of the boards because it's easier to keep the convex side tight to the fence and molding head throughout the entire length of the cut.  The tongue cuts are then made on the other edge (keeping the reference face down).  Finally, since these cutters are only 1 inch wide, the tongue side requires an additional rip cut to remove the extra 1/2 inch of material.  Overall, I'm very pleased with these trial run results!





e aho laula

jueston

i love your avatar.... that makes at least 3 people on the forum with cat avatars...

but its good to see your making progress now, how many square feet are you planning on doing like that, looks like its going to take a little while, but i'm sure it will be worth it when you finish and know you did it all yourself.

jimparamedic

Looks good I have craftsman molding heads 4 at this time and 3 table saws it all works great. I like your fence Ill give it a try

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