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Wood floor with contrasting plugs

tuolumne | Posted in General Discussion on January 22, 2007 11:36am

I will be making a random width cherry plank floor: 6″ to 10″ widths and lengths up to 12′. 

1) Does anyone have photos of a wide plank wood floor with contrasting plugs?

2) How do larger plugs like 1″ diameter look?

3) What about other exposed fasteners?  Nothing shiny please.

4) Any recommendations for plug species if I go that route?

5) Are end grain plugs fine if they contrast anyway?

6) Should tapered plugs be avoided due to the possibility of working loose with foot traffice or in case the floor is resanded and finished in the future?

7) Sleepers will be around 16″ o.c.  I could vary this a bit to get uniform spacing across the room.  What should the fastener spacing be?  16″ seems pretty busy, I would prefer 48″.  The room is 15′ wide, so I could go 8″ in from each end and 41″ o.c. or something like that.

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  1. rez | Jan 29, 2007 01:56am | #1

    Greetings tu,

    This post, in response to your question, will bump the thread through the 'recent discussion' listing again which will increase it's viewing.

    Perhaps it will catch someone's attention that can help you with advice.

    Cheers

    "being human is a complicated proposition"-DavidxDoud

    ---Never show a fool a half finished job---Grampsy
    I feel like a bunny in a hillbilly meadow at noon..........jjwalters

     

    1. frenchy | Jan 30, 2007 08:44am | #7

      Rez,

       I have 3/8ths inch plugs in my billard room and 1/2 inch plugs on the bridge to it. The later was a mistake and in retrospect I wish I'd not made the mistake.. in the billard room the plugs are virtaully invisable but seen easier on the bridge.  Now these are  black walnut plugs in a black walnut foor with both the grain and color selected carefully to become as invisable as possible.

       I actaully had some lighter colored plugs (early wood)  on a few places where the black walnut is real dark.. it bothered me so much I drilled them all out and replaced them.

       

       

  2. RedfordHenry | Jan 29, 2007 04:52am | #2

    There's a few houses around here, all built by the same builder in the mid-80s I think (repro colonials, and federal style), with fairly wide oak plank floors (~6") and what looks like walnut plugs.  The plugs are pretty wide, maybe 5/8 or 3/4", but not 1".   The first time I saw them, I thought "wow, polka dots".   I thought it looked a lot less formal than was intended, especially in the foyers and dining rooms that had otherwise formal trim packages.  I think 1" plugs, especially if they were contrasting would look pretty odd.  The current owners are all 2nd or 3rd owners and all of them say it is the worse feature in their house.  Must have been a short-lived fad, or the mark of a young architect trying to impress the world with a novel design idea (fortunately short lived).

    Not sure what your house style is, but there's a variety of cut nails available for exposed heads (Tremont Nail is one) you can check out.

    The only plugs I've ever used were square sided, face grain.  Never had any problem with them.

    Cherry is relatively soft for flooring, am curious why you chose it.

    1. jesup | Jan 29, 2007 09:31am | #3

      We have wide (up to 8")/random oak floors from circa 1973 - pre-finished Bruce, wire-wheeled for texture and beveled, with pre-drilled holes for cut nails. Pretty neat; held up without refinishing for 35ish years. The problem is that the cut nails are slightly proud of the surface in areas, and it hurts my wife's and mother-in-law's feet. I've taken a hammer and driven them as best I can, which helps, but doesn't solve the problem (perhaps I didn't hit them hard enough...).My wife would like to: a) refinish the floors (raised grain has captured dust and such for 30 years, and there are few water/etc stains). A floor guy said he could pull all the cut nails(!!), refinish and replace them for circa $5000ish for 1000-1500ish sq ft (I haven't measured). b) she wants to get rid of all the cut nails and go with plugs. Any comments/suggestions? If the flooring guy deepens the current holes, we _should_ be able to sink the nails below surface level, I'd imagine.

      1. Brian | Jan 30, 2007 02:02am | #4

        Could you sink all the nails with a punch, fill and refinish?

        Get a 3 lb hammer and a big punch...

         Treat every person you meet like you will know them the rest of your life - you just might!

        1. jesup | Jan 30, 2007 08:31am | #5

          Tough to sink deeper; the nailheads are 1/4-1/3" across, made to look like hand-forged (not flat) and fit into pre-cut holes. I think that's why the flooring guy was planning to pull all of them first. You could pull, sand, re-cut the holes, and then re-install.

        2. frenchy | Jan 30, 2007 08:39am | #6

          Brian

            if you did you'd wind up with wood fibers sticking up as the nail head was smashed down sure they could be sanded level but as the wood shrinks and swells with humidity and moiture they tend to keep popping up.. In addition mashed wood fibers will swell as humidity hits them and cause the nails to be forced up, loosening them..

  3. frenchy | Jan 30, 2007 08:54am | #8

    tuolumne.

        All my plugs have a slight taper to them.. makes inserting them easier and faster. the slight space left in the taper space is filled with glue..  at the surface of the flooring the taper matches the size of the hole and makes for an extremely snug fit.   plus absolutely minimizes the glue line. 

     Sixteen inches is absolutely the minimum spacing possible to avoid loose board conditions..  do not ever consider spreading the fastners further apart than that.  Mine are 12 inches on center and a minimum of 2 screws per board at those locations. Wider boards starting with 5 1/2 inch wide get three screws and wider than 10"   gets 4 screws.  The mximum I will spread a screw apart is 2 1/2 inches

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