Grooving Planks

[D L Bahler]

I should add another thing that I failed to mention,

Not only do I need to be able to cut grooves into heavy planks for floor construction, But I also need to be able to cut a double row of grooves down the length of 3 or 4" thick planks for my walls. The splines here aren't structural, they are there to stop drafts. It would also be nice to be able to use the same setup to cut spline grooves down the length of 4 or 5 inch thick, long timbers for log construction.

I like these solutions, but I still do kind of feel like to best fit all of these needs, some sort of handheld tool would be best. Right now I'm thinking along the lines of either a spiral upcut router (I may make some kind of custom router assembly with a special base) or a circular saw with the guard removed (yikes) and small blades stacked for grooving. Again with a custom base.

Also keep in mind, owing to the virtue of the construction methods I use (hey, I bi-n-e Schwiizeri Bueb...) the timber surfaces are all going to be pretty much perfect -or as close to it as is reasonable in something as imperfect (perfectly imperfect) as wood.

[TW]

Then one of these would do all those jobs:
http://www.bamseprodukter.se/?page_id=14

A molding head suspended from a sled that rides back and forth on a sturdy frame. As the slab is stood on edge with the edge to be worked upwards and the lower edge standing on movable stops it is easy to set the two stops at it's ends at different heights. Therefore this setup can easily work straight profiled edges onto tapered slabs. I think Solosågen also sell a similar setup for their chain sawmills and I know that Woodmizer sell something fairly similar on the Scandinavian market as extra accessory for some models of their sawmills.

If you don't own a band sawmill or chain sawmill you could buy the molding head unit with motor and sled as an after market accessory and weld up a frame of your own. Some people do that in order to mechanize and speed up Scandinavian style log building where the logs essentially are 5 or 6 or 7 inches thick slabs. The standard knives sold for these setups are made for this log building style but as least Bamsefräsen uses an ordinary corrugated head so you could grind or order any knives you want for it.

[oklalogdog]

Since I know didly squat about flooring I'll chime in.  How about using oak dowel rods every 6 - 8"

[D L Bahler]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3J5wkJFJzE

like this

That is a solution that  works, but it's not suitable in this case do to the way the planks will be installed

[TW]

No
Not like that at all.

I was thinking about this method:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J_PiyA9MTE
The cutter head is a standard currugated head that can be equipped with appropriate moulding knives to joint the edge of your planks and cut the grooves all at once. In this case it carries the knives for scandinavian log building but any profile knives can be used.

A similar (probably cheaper) machine from another maker:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN6AyVq7YO4

[D L Bahler]

Sorry, TW, that response was to the suggestion about pegging the planks together. Go to 20 minute mark to see this

I'd love to have nice machines like that some time, but they are to expensive to justify right now. If I would have constant work year round building expensive projects, I would get good machines but as is, I'm looking for more or less low-tech solutions

[losttheplot]

What was the traditional method of cutting the grooves ?

[D L Bahler]

Depends on the period.
Particularly early on, they might have used a chisel to chop them out -very time consuming.
Some time, someone got the bright idea to mount the chisel in a block and eventually you get a grooving plane. That was the primary method up to the middle of the 20th century. Now they use moulding machines. Always, the free spline was the method of choice. You do see some tongue and groove on some buildings -they seem to have tried this out around 1900- but most of the time the free spline is used even today.