Thread: Flooring before tounge and groove

Originally Posted by orraloon

Far as I know wood flooring was for the wealthy up until the late 19th cent. Dirt floors, flagstone, and cobbles were the go. ...

This may have varied by region.

I am in Tasmania and a lot of quite modest cottages from the 1850's have survived, and a few going back to the 1830's. Virtually all have timber floors. One quirk from that era is that kitchens were quite basic and often in a separate building separated by a breeze-way, because of their fire risk.

Pumpngo, Welcome to the Forum and the fickle world of milling. Even more fickle when it's Iron bark. It's great timber but hard work getting there.
When it comes to flooring, quality is everything. Good straight grained logs, preferably with a pipe, produce the best boards. Drying the sawn timber is also very important. Too dry and they want to swell. Too wet and they want to shrink. Just right and your in with a chance. Air drying Iron bark is tricky, particularly if its thick, so access to a kiln is an advantage. The flooring needs to be allowed to come back to local atmospheric conditions before being fixed into position, this can be done by loose laying the floor, upside down, during construction, then turning the boards over and nailing.
In our area there are many early settlement homes that have ironbark butted floors. One in particular has always amazed me how tight the boards have remained over so many years. This house became the old Windsor museum until it was returned to a residence when the new museum was built a few years ago.
Some (many) years ago I did a floor for an old sea captain. He was the last apprentice on the Windjammers. Fascinating old fella and a bloody good carpenter before he went blind. He asked me to do the floor in thin boards (half inch), butt jointed and laid in two crossed layers. The timber he had saved for the job was Iron bark. It was a delight to lay, easy to manipulate and quick to fix (admittedly everything had to be done twice.) End result was a strong stable floor, with tight joints that have stayed pretty tight for 45 years. The surface was oiled with Tung oil. When you turned the lights on it glowed.

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

In house DIY, I think the OP has two good options:

• tongue and groove joints, or
• loose tongue joints.

Tongue & groove: It is easy to cut tongue and groove edges on a router table or, preferably, a spindle molder.

Loose tongue: Cut the grooves with the planks on edge on the table saw or with a router/spindle moulder. Cut the battens to fit the grooves on the table saw.

Good recommendations IF a DIY'er can maintain production quality with machining T&G or loose tongue. When you calculate the lineal meters of flooring required then multiply by 2 there is a lot of tedious work ahead machining T&G as a DIY project. Perhaps our tame saw miller JohnG may contribute as he runs a lot of boards and flooring through a 4 head machine.

The other recommendation above to use a moisture barrier type film would be ok too - except in bush fire prone areas. The Building Code of Australia and state regs set out requirements for fire resistant materials and construction.

Pumpngo, Welcome to the Forum and the fickle world of milling. Even more fickle when it's Iron bark. It's great timber but hard work getting there.
When it comes to flooring, quality is everything. Good straight grained logs, preferably with a pipe, produce the best boards. Drying the sawn timber is also very important. Too dry and they want to swell. Too wet and they want to shrink. Just right and your in with a chance. Air drying Iron bark is tricky, particularly if its thick, so access to a kiln is an advantage. The flooring needs to be allowed to come back to local atmospheric conditions before being fixed into position, this can be done by loose laying the floor, upside down, during construction, then turning the boards over and nailing.
In our area there are many early settlement homes that have ironbark butted floors. One in particular has always amazed me how tight the boards have remained over so many years. This house became the old Windsor museum until it was returned to a residence when the new museum was built a few years ago.
Some (many) years ago I did a floor for an old sea captain. He was the last apprentice on the Windjammers. Fascinating old fella and a bloody good carpenter before he went blind. He asked me to do the floor in thin boards (half inch), butt jointed and laid in two crossed layers. The timber he had saved for the job was Iron bark. It was a delight to lay, easy to manipulate and quick to fix (admittedly everything had to be done twice.) End result was a strong stable floor, with tight joints that have stayed pretty tight for 45 years. The surface was oiled with Tung oil. When you turned the lights on it glowed.

Thanks for the information , the plastic barrier sounded good , but i am in a fire area. The two layer floor is interesting though as i don't have the gear to make tounge and groove, but i have plenty of timber . I'm on 1500 acres of trees. I'm probably using the standing dead trees to have a start on the drying.My saw is swingblade and i just got an old 6" planer but it has no feed. Maybe rough sawn first layer and dress one side for the top .

There will be too much variance in thickness with rough sawn faces off a swing blade mill. You will also have the hairy fibres wanting to get between boards during cramping. May take time dressing but will speed the process of laying when all components are DAR and equal in size. It also makes face selection much easier with dressed timber
Saw to thickness (no thinner than 20mm), air dry (about nine months) or kiln if available which would be way quicker. Thickness will now be about 16mm allowing enough material to plane 2mm off both sides.
Keep stickers close spaced (350mm) for thin stuff like this and keep them dead inline vertically otherwise wavey boards will be a problem. A dead level base is critical. Paint all board ends. Keep first and last sticker in the row flush with ends of boards, this helps slow end drying and prevent cracking, also stops ends winding.

You will probably need to build yourself a Solar Kiln, buy a shipping container and convert it, will be money well spent.

Pumpngo

Others have mentioned narrow boards and for many years they were an indicator of quality flooring. The reason was they were less likely to cup. Actually all boards will "tend" to cup but it is less noticeable with a narrow board. It is important to alternate the direction of the growth rings when laying the boards. Shrinkage too will be less noticeable with narrow boards. It is only in recent times that wide boards became fashionable. Many would consider this a retrograde step.

To create a tongue and groove floor is a lot of work without sophisticated machinery (multi head moulder) but can be done with a larger router and a suitable set of cutters, if you are patient and the floor is not too big. Working in Ironbark will be a lot more challenging than, say, Cypress pine.

Kiln drying, while preferable, may be quite a bit of extra expense. Since Covid, shipping containers have become more expensive, plus there is the cost of converting. Also to make a full charge you would probably need between eight and 10m3, which would be a lot more than you are contemplating.

A simple, but admittedly less effective, kiln can be made from poly pipe and plastic sheeting if you wish to go down that track There is some information on this thread, which was on Spotted Gum but follows similar principles. See page eight of the thread for kiln details.

Regards
Paul

Thanks everyone , looks like i should buy flooring. I think its more complicated and time consuming than what i have time for. Oh well I can make most of the timber needed. I'd like to make a log roller to make self edge weatherboards . If i don't get time there is an attachment for the mill to make them . So at least cladding and structural timber can be done . Thanks everyone

Originally Posted by Pumpngo

Thanks everyone , looks like i should buy flooring. I think its more complicated and time consuming than what i have time for. Oh well I can make most of the timber needed. I'd like to make a log roller to make self edge weatherboards . If i don't get time there is an attachment for the mill to make them . So at least cladding and structural timber can be done . Thanks everyone

Is this project 2/3 years down the track or are you going to build it with green timber?