Making long flooring boards

[jrokusek]

I've seen some wide flooring in person, mostly in pictures and I do like the look of it.  Don't think I'll use that in my present house....may go with narrower stuff.  BUT, what I haven't seen is long flooring.  For example, if I have a wild hair and want to put flooring in a room that is 12' by 12' and use a 12' T&G flooring......why couldn't I do that?   Is it simply a case of keeping the 12' boards straight? 

I'm probably missing something here, so someone please enlighten me if I'm missing something obvious.  I'm thinking of using a 3 HP router to make the flooring.  Shouldn't have to worry about using T&G on the ends with a 12' piece of flooring and a 12' room! 

Jim

[solodan]

I've made random width/random length floors before and have never had a problem with the long boards. In my home  I have   blue stained ponderosa, and used boards 3" to 12" wide and up to 16' in length. Lots of long length floors are not end matched, and actually lots of the old pine and oak floors were not even t+g on the edges. I have installed floors with just a butt edge and it works quite well.

[iain]

The router will do the job good

try and learn to do a VERY gentle back cut ( be very careful), then forward this makes a very nice clean tongue edge which you will appreciate when fitting

i have a matched pair of trend cutters for t&g work and two big routers set just right

but there is no reason not to use long boards other then spring out


iain

[TW]

Now I know nothing about yor climate and wood but over here I have seen floors with all the boards full lenght that was about 7 1/2 meter = about 25 feet. They were random width spruce or pine and 2" thick and about 6-14" wide.

[Fla._Deadheader]

12' is about the longest length commercial flooring places sell.

[iain]

Ive done a few wall to wall rooms, i'll see if i can sort out a pic or two for you



iain

[Deadwood]

There are two reasons to keep flooring boards short from what I can tell:

To keep the scale of the logs up by keeping the logs shorter (less knots/ defects/ wider/ etc)

Room in which to work the material up

Let me explain the second. When I put the Ash Flooring in my house, my longest board was 14 feet. Long, but not to long, or so I thought. While planing them, the length became my enemy. With 14 feet needed in front of the planer, a few feet for the planer itself, and then another 14 feet on th backside of the planer, well you are in need of 32 feet of room.

I overcame all thast by planing mine outside, but it does make a difference. Still its nice to have a floor of 10 inch wide ash 14 feet long and when people admire it, you can say "You can't even buy flooring like this."

[etat]

I bought D grade tongue and groove six inch pine flooring with back reliefs cut on the boards for my house right straight off of the shelf at the lumber company where I do business.  Very very few knots and they were mostly all tight.   

[solodan]

ctate,

I'm assuming those were 12 footers. pine floors out this way are often 16' as they are usually run through the moulder from 1x stock. The 4 inch doug fir is usually run at 12', but you will never find a knot in that stuff.

[etat]

Actually no, they were 16 foot.   Most rooms I had to cut them down some because i ran a LOT of my flooring on a diagonal, there's pictures here somewhere.  I just this minute went upstairs and measured Jennifer's room, the only room I ran them full length ways of the room.  Measurements are 15 foot, two inches so I'm pretty sure I cut ten inches off of them.  This was old stock and the lumber company had them stored in a rack way up over head.  They had to climb up there and pull them out to load them on the truck and bring them to my house, I bought them sight unseen on Mr. Snyders recommendation.  I had never heard of D grade but that's what the store manager told me they were. I bought the whole stack thinking it would be full of knots, I was 'pleasantly' surprised to find out they weren't    8) 8).

If you have the 'least' question I will take a picture of the upstairs with a tape measure laid the length of the boards.  There are practically NO butt seams in the middle of the floor in my upstairs or downstairs. 

[Faron]

I think you will have better luck in long lengths in pine rather than oak or other hardwoods.  Longer lengths and wider flooring are more difficult to lay tight.  Naturally the straighter you get the blank ripped, the better.

[jrokusek]

Thanks for all the responses.  I was thinking of using ash since that is what I will have plenty of.  Guess I'll have to see what it looks like once I get it cut down and on the mill.  I wasn't thinking wide boards as much as I was thinking of long boards.   Have to see where this idea winds up.....

Jim

[iain]

here's a quick pic theres another couple in my gallery




this is where the boards chance direction (the joists went every where :)

they are about 16' long side to side and the top to bottoms are about 6' long
the change of direction is above a joist


iain

[beenthere]

Now there is a 'work of art' by a wood artist.  8) 8)

[Paul_H]

I agree,and those pics are too good to leave in the gallery so here are a couple that I pilfered out of Iain's album






Very nice  8)

[isawlogs]

iain

  Got to say that it looks really good . Are they scibed and butted to one another , or did you do some fancy jointing  ???

[Furby]

Dat's what I wanted to do with my cherry!
Ya coming over for the piggy roast Iain ???
Got a job for ya! ;D

[iain]

I got plans for the piggy roast (but then i did last year as well >:()

them boards is easy to do if you dont have the radius of you curves to small

just lay them out some place you can see them in row (against a wall is the best ) order them how they look good (it will change)

pick you favorite and either band saw or jig saw the out line, lay on top of the next and scribe, cit to the line and repeat till your happy

mark each edge with either T or G ( some boards are t or g on both sides depending on the grain pattern) you must not get them wrong as they only fir one place

route out and sand

the bath room one is finished with 4 rubbed coats of PV67 all round (use a big roller )
and saskias was oil and wax   both done about 4 years ago and seem to be holding up ok (they get NO maintenance)


once you get going its not much slower than doing straights by hand


iain

[HARLEYRIDER]

Thats awesome iain. I have never seen a floor like that. great work

[TexasTimbers]

Ooooooooooooh Yeah, that's what i'm screamin! Real nice Iain. That would look real nice in our little Hobbit Hole. I don't think I will have enough 16' long Osage to do it with out end butting but the butting shouldn't present a problem. Just a little extra work.
I T&Ged a shower stall with ERC about 15 years ago and end butted them and they still look as good as the day I did it.

Nice work Iain!
Jim if you have to use less than room length there are lots of creative ways to to it. If you don't want to end butt you can border the centered boards then run from that to the wall again. Many different ways to do it.