Hello all,
Thanks in advance for any insight you may have to offer, I always realize how much I DON’T know when I read this forum! Anyhow, I am installing a wide plank (I think it qualifies-5 1/2″ wide) Brazillain Cherry floor. The problem I am having is that on some of the longer boards I am getting occassional gaps, sometimes up to 1/8″ on a couple of them. I have tried all the tricks I know, prying, hammering, etc. and am still having trouble. I found a special jack made by Powernail which is designed to push flooring together. I am wondering if anyone on this sire has used one of these or if there are any other ideas (short of going to a narrower product). I don’t think that the ammount of deflection I am seeing on the long pieces is unusuall but is much harder to overcome on wider pieces.
Thanks again for any tips you might have!
Karl
Replies
Lumber Liquidators product?
Trying to take the bend out of a 5" wide exotic floor board is probably an exercise in futility. You might want to sight down the board beofre you install it and see if it is straight. If it is bent, you might want to use it somehwere that it can be cut to a shorter length.
And are you sure the board is bent? sometimes the boards vary inwidth by 1/32 or 1/16 inch, and it shows more than you would think.
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
Yeah the problem might be in the milling in which case all the bending smashing and pressing in the world won't fix it and might make it worse. Unless your set up to remill on site at least the course your stuck on now . Hopefully you just went with the flow and are looking for a good filler. W hen its all sanded out and finished i bet that brazilian cherry is going to look niiiice.
I've used a Cepco flooring jack. It's sort of a cross between pump jack, in how it jams on the 2x4 mast used with it, and a trailer jack, where you spin a crank to put the pressure on. It worked great on 2 1/4 in. oak, and my new neighbor just used it to put down 12 in. T&G white oak. He loved it for that, so I imagine it would make 5 in. Brazilian cherry confess its sins.
Andy
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig." Robert A. Heinlein (or maybe Mark Twain)
"Get off your dead #### and on your dying feet." Mom
"Everything not forbidden is compulsory." T.H. White, The Book of Merlin
Thanks for the response, you are absolutely correct about there being some slight variations in the flooring width and I know I have to live with those. If this was from Lumber Liquidators I might not have been so suprised but this came from the biggest flooring wholesaler in the Portland (Or.) area. I am going to try and sight pieces before nailing (slow!) and if I discover that the majority of it is flawed will see sbout getting a new batch.
I suppose I could rip, joint and regroove everything but what a hassle and makes my time worth about .35 an hour! I know it will look great, I have built stairs out of this wood before and it is beautiful, for some reason this project has been a battle!
Thanks to all
Karl
This is typical with exotic flooring. I've seen it occur with the best and worst brands.
Do not attempt to correct improper milling....you just telegraph it to the next row.
We always just trowel filled the entire floor with Cherry Timbermate before the first cut.
Hi Ditch,
That's what I needed to hear! I was worried about this having never had this problem before and always being able to keep tight joints on other floors. Thanks, I'll finish nailing it and let the finisher fill in the gaps! It is always a concern for me when a job doesn't turn out the way I envision it but I think that this one will be fine after reading every ones posts etc.
Thanks again
Karl
You'll notice the boards taper ever so slightly at one or both ends. That's because sawdust accumilates near the cutting heads of the molders and pushes the beginning or end or both away from the cutting heads. Most of the manufacturing equipment over there is on par with what big flooring mills in the states use, it's just that the people running it don't care or don't know to keep the heads clear.
Quality control in S. America isn't what it is here.
I put down 400 sf of 5" Br Cherry this past February - paid $6 a sf -- I did not have the problem you are having as most all of mine were straight (my longest piece was 6 feet and there may have been 2 of these in a 20sf bundle -- the rest were stepped down in 6" increments) -- now that I has been down 9 months -- it is holding up fine -- if I were you, I test a piece and if it was bowed, I might use it as a filler that way I could get a start piece out of it and maybe a finish -- but if you have a whole lot, I'd ask for another bundle or just not use the every long ones.