Thread: Turning Floorboards into furniture timber

You saw off the tongues and grooves and keep the thickness at 20mm right ? The board ends up a bit narrower. Sounds great to me .

Or you thickness away the T&G and end up with 6mm Oak and don't lose any width. Only good for small drawer sides or Parquetry top manufacture where its used like a veneer and glued down to something else . Or other small stuff . Boxes maybe ?

If I wanted that thin size Id be band sawing it in half to get twice as much .

I used old jarrah floor boards, put through a thicknesser, to make a table top. The tongue and groove were useful in this case.

Yeah I’d be happy to loose 20mm off the sides. What I mean in these 4 grooves running under the boards.

IMG_9212.jpg


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Originally Posted by Cbig

Is this a bad or good idea?

I’ve come across a fair bit of American Oak (about 50 square meters) 180mm by 20mm thick for a cheap price. I don’t intend to use this as flooring.

Has anyone here successfully done this? I’m worried by the time you get rid of the grooves it will be too thin.


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No it’s rubbish. I’ll dispose of it for you!!
No seriously it’s great for small cabinet builds, serving trays, jewellery boxes. Only downside I’ve found is the weight for serving trays etc but you can join them together with the T&G and run them through a thicknesser


Northern Beaches Sydney

If you can't see the grooves in the piece you make then they don't matter anyway. You'll only be losing 2-3mm if you do have to plane them out, that's still plenty of material left for small to medium sized projects.

I scored two trailer loads of river red gum floorboards for a couple of slabs and have used it both ripped and thicknessed into flat boards and with the tongue and groove to make wider panels. One example attached.

Owen

I’ve done chests of drawers using qtr sawn 16mm material as a bit of an experiment and it has, to date, 10 years, had not a problem. Go for it, be bold, break the rules.

Originally Posted by WoodyOwen

I scored two trailer loads of river red gum floorboards for a couple of slabs and have used it both ripped and thicknessed into flat boards and with the tongue and groove to make wider panels. One example attached.

Owen

Looks epic, well done


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I’ve built outdoor furniture using decking boards as well. Also laminating to make legs and things is good and the grooves won’t matter unless the end grain is visible

I’ve built outdoor furniture using decking boards as well. Also laminating to make legs and things is good and the grooves won’t matter unless the end grain is visible

Go for it, be bold, break the rules.

Using timber that isn't the standard 19mm thickness can make it stand out from the crowd.

I've done the same with Tas Oak flooring. Just cut/planed off the tongue and groove. Where both sides were going to be visible, flattened the backs too. I started using the table saw (with the boards on edge), but that was a little dicey, so used a hand plane which was both simpler and much safer. I've subsequently bought a thicknesses though, which makes short work of it.

It's great to have a ready supply of nice timber of various projects, and floor boards take up very little storage. Go for it!

Lance

You are going to lose about 6 or 7 mm in width when removing the T & G. That's easy to do with a table saw. Removing the groves from the back side you will lose 2 or 3 mm in thickness and bring the thickness down to 17 mm. The killer is the finish side. You could remove the finish using a thicknesser but that would be a killer on the knives. I would find someone with a wide belt sander and rent time on the sander. Here I can get wide belt sander time for about $40 per half hour.

A tip would be to edge glue the strips into workable widths before the thicknesser and wide belt sander. That way you won't have to worry about glue on the face.

BTW - The finish is probably on the best looking face because someone "graded" the boards before machining and chose the best surface for the floor.

Go for it. You will soon realise this is one of the best things ever.