Special T & G Hand Nailing Guide Tool??
I have client that has been building a timber framed home. He has on hand several hundreds of feet of 2×6 T&G #1 yellow pine flooring for the second floor/1 st floor ceiling.
He has gone to the rental stores attempting to rent a nailer to apply the flooring, but the longest fastener is 2″ or 2-1/2″. A 3″ fastner would be best for the timber frame joist are 36″ O.C. Is there a nailer that will do 3″ fastners for 2×6 T&G?
If not, please tell me if there is still a tool supplier that handles a hand nailing guide with nail set for T&G flooring. I remember one from thirty years ago that was used to manually install flooring and protect from hammer overstrike.
It had a square block of metal with a 45 degree hole to accept a #8 or #10 finish nail. That block sat on top of the tongue and was held in place by an attached 4″ or 5″ flat piece of metal that rode on the flat surface of the board. When the nail was driven to the top level of the metal block then a special nail set was used to drive the head through the metal block and into the tongue. The block with handle was about 2″ wide and acted as an overstrike protector to the wood surface.
Or maybe that was 40 years ago!!!! Comments and advice relevant to 2003 are welcome to solve this install problem.
Thanks…………….Iron Helix
Replies
Hope your yellow pine T & G is really really dry. When they did the floor on our timber frame the wood measure about 14 to 16 % and we have had a great deal of movement and shrikage since installation. All that was use to install this was a framing nailer. It was tight when installed but open up enough after 2 years that in a few place you could see through the gaps.
We ended up screwing down the T & G yellow pine (on 36 inch centers) to get flat and then sanded the high spots. Looks great from the bottom, on top we then put down # 2 oak flooring run at right angles to the T & G. Makes the T & G the ceiling for the first floor and a sub floor for the secnond. Makes for a really great looking floor, but costs half an arm and a leg. (about $ 5 per sq. ft here in western NC not counting the orginal yellow pine) Note we had 2 years drying time on the yellow pine before adding the oak flooring. Also before screwing down the yellow pine we had lots of squeaks -- screwing took care of 99 % of that movement.
If I had it to do again I think I might have gone with 1 inch T & G (3/4 inch) then plywood sub floor then the oak flooring.
deblacksmith