Sorry if this is a little O/T for here, but has anyone ever cut their own slots to use up leftover bits? I've got a ton of useful lengths (50cm etc.) and the hallway is next to be done. I've made a few mistakes so will probably need another box or so, but it galls me that I've got all this offcut that just needs some ends cutting into it. This stuff is 10mm, I doubt I'll be able to replicate the "click" style stuff it has on it, but I just need to get them to interlock widthways as well as lengthways.
- Thread starter Cyberprog
- Start date
Yeah, rather what I suspected. Maybe get a router bit and just do a overlapping profile (cut 5mm off the top of one, and 5mm off the bottom of the other) with a bead of glue and use them side by side with the normal profile.
You should not have many leftovers, whatever you are left with at the end of a run is used to start the next run, this also helps stagger the joints.
But if you want to reuse them it is probably best to glue them together as you lay them, there will be little strength but normally the friction of the front and back connections will keep them in place
But if you want to reuse them it is probably best to glue them together as you lay them, there will be little strength but normally the friction of the front and back connections will keep them in place
Biscuit jointers are cheap as chips now, consider grooving both pieces and glue a biscuit in. Or a continous groove and slip a sliver of wood in.
Or if you have a router, just buy a biscuit grooving saw to go in the collet,
Stan
Or if you have a router, just buy a biscuit grooving saw to go in the collet,
Stan
Yes, but I'm a little OCD and I wanted the joints to line up (they are staggered, but make a lovely pattern).
That makes sense, might see if I can get some biscuits. Would be hardier, and I'm only going across a metre and a bit of floor. I'll try and interweave these bits with proper locked bits too.
getting a biscuit M/C gives any easy opportunity to take a nice cut out of the skirting and let the flooring run under the skirting, remember to leav an expansion gap for the flooring., and then finish off with a silicone or painters mate bead.
Can be a pain in the preverbial getting the last bits into place underneath the skirting. you may end up removing a length. But very neat and worth the effort.
Stan.
Can be a pain in the preverbial getting the last bits into place underneath the skirting. you may end up removing a length. But very neat and worth the effort.
Stan.
A 10mm thick wood is rather thin to use a biscuit jointer on, even if you get the biscuits in given that it is a laminate floor there would be insufficient strength to withstand the installation. If you really wanted to join bits like this it would probably be best to use butterfly joints from the bottom
It does depend greatly upon the finish you have and the quality of the flooring.
In the kitchen I have a tile effect laminate - and its great, looks reasonably close to a tiled floor without the cold feeling underfoot and much quicker to lay
In the living room I have good quality solid Oak - it has stood up to 5 years of high traffic really well. It was a matt finish to start with but looks as good today as it did when it went down
In my study I fitted an engineered Oak floor - big mistake, shows lots of damage and dents easily if you drop something. I would never buy and engineered floor again
In my dining room I fitted a laminate flooring - within a few months I had taken it back up and replaced it with solid Oak.
There is such a variety in the quality of the flooring, but tis the same as carpet, buy cheap crap and it will not last, but good quality and it does.
brightspark
Member
- Messages
- 41,322
- Location
- yarm stockton on tees
be ok using carbide router cutters but i dont think i could be bothered to use scraps of wood
the snooper
getting older by the day
- Messages
- 21,063
- Location
- Hull UK
don't think I would have done it like that, just makes it look as though you have 2 tracks from your door making the rest look different, the 2 tracks look like parquet flooring or similar would look, but each to his own
also with the offcuts will you be able to get a clean enough edge to make it look right on the joints
DAPPH
as dyslexik as I'm daft
- Messages
- 7,302
- Location
- Near to Cross Hands Llanelli SouthWales GB
I used my rise & fall /tiltable contractors bench saw with a new fine toothed CTC blade & a front table extension to cut new tongs & grooves on the simpler laminate profile flooring .
Made some shoes to slide the strips in to stop things jamming on the fences & riving knife .
I've also used a very fine toothed tennon /back saw to cut the tongues on cut plank ends .
I've used my router with a self ground up cutter to take out the groves ( router fixed inverted in a purpose built home made routing bench ) I made all the groves in one go and then adjusted the height to take out the bottom of the tongue edge , inverting the strip to get the other face shaped up . I used a 1" chisel to put a micro champher on the end of the strips so that they wouldn't look out i=of place where to bespoke faces met up .
You will have to do a small test set up to ensure things are going to fit well , it's best to have some play at the home made joint and fill the grove up with the floor joint glue . Once the strip is in place wipe any excess glue off with a damp cloth. Keep the cloth washed & well wrung out for this purpose .
Saying all that I'll never use laminate ever again ..it is un-insurable with most insurance companies .
So any moisture ingress which ruins the floor cannot be claimed for . Unless you fully seal the edges of all the groves you will get some moisture attack even if it is from the moisture in the air ..this will swell the joints eventually .... it seems to happen especially along heavy traffic areas.
Six years ago I moved over to 10 mm thick engineered carbonized medium gloss sealed bamboo flooring for the kitchen & the outside office because of not being allowed a claim for water damage on the laminate floors in the ,lounge , dining room & hall .
What we now have does show up with some marks but that adds to the character . It comes as clean as the day it was laid using a simple cheap supermarket hard wood floor cleaner. It is also a lot warmer than laminate flooring.
Made some shoes to slide the strips in to stop things jamming on the fences & riving knife .
I've also used a very fine toothed tennon /back saw to cut the tongues on cut plank ends .
I've used my router with a self ground up cutter to take out the groves ( router fixed inverted in a purpose built home made routing bench ) I made all the groves in one go and then adjusted the height to take out the bottom of the tongue edge , inverting the strip to get the other face shaped up . I used a 1" chisel to put a micro champher on the end of the strips so that they wouldn't look out i=of place where to bespoke faces met up .
You will have to do a small test set up to ensure things are going to fit well , it's best to have some play at the home made joint and fill the grove up with the floor joint glue . Once the strip is in place wipe any excess glue off with a damp cloth. Keep the cloth washed & well wrung out for this purpose .
Saying all that I'll never use laminate ever again ..it is un-insurable with most insurance companies .
So any moisture ingress which ruins the floor cannot be claimed for . Unless you fully seal the edges of all the groves you will get some moisture attack even if it is from the moisture in the air ..this will swell the joints eventually .... it seems to happen especially along heavy traffic areas.
Six years ago I moved over to 10 mm thick engineered carbonized medium gloss sealed bamboo flooring for the kitchen & the outside office because of not being allowed a claim for water damage on the laminate floors in the ,lounge , dining room & hall .
What we now have does show up with some marks but that adds to the character . It comes as clean as the day it was laid using a simple cheap supermarket hard wood floor cleaner. It is also a lot warmer than laminate flooring.
DAPPH
as dyslexik as I'm daft
- Messages
- 7,302
- Location
- Near to Cross Hands Llanelli SouthWales GB
I understand the depth of your pockets & the length of your arms .
Give it a lot of thought next time so you don't end up wasting things and plan carefully so you only buy the minimum number of packs of flooring.
I would do the biggest room first so if you need to you can put off the smaller rooms till funds are easier .
Running the boards across a room from the main entry door tends to shorten the room , whereas going length ways from the main entry door makes it look longer and bigger .
Running them diagonally stretches both directions and helps disguise things like the room not being square at the corners .
So long as you practice , " Using the cut board end at the start of the next run you should never have more than a board left over as scrap except if you have to cut half width boards to fit to along the walls .... that's why I like the diagonal approach you will only have one waste board .
My engineered bamboo has been secretly screwed to the sub floor ..mines is laminate over a wooden floor in the office and the kitchen stiff is glued to the mortered floor topping.
You can use the same screws as I used to actually secret screw to the mortar floor ( didn't know that at the time ) with a power drill and the specially hardened securing screws that are like lost head nails but driven in with a star drive bit in the power drill .
.Give it a lot of thought next time so you don't end up wasting things and plan carefully so you only buy the minimum number of packs of flooring.
I would do the biggest room first so if you need to you can put off the smaller rooms till funds are easier .
Running the boards across a room from the main entry door tends to shorten the room , whereas going length ways from the main entry door makes it look longer and bigger .
Running them diagonally stretches both directions and helps disguise things like the room not being square at the corners .
So long as you practice , " Using the cut board end at the start of the next run you should never have more than a board left over as scrap except if you have to cut half width boards to fit to along the walls .... that's why I like the diagonal approach you will only have one waste board .
My engineered bamboo has been secretly screwed to the sub floor ..mines is laminate over a wooden floor in the office and the kitchen stiff is glued to the mortered floor topping.
You can use the same screws as I used to actually secret screw to the mortar floor ( didn't know that at the time ) with a power drill and the specially hardened securing screws that are like lost head nails but driven in with a star drive bit in the power drill .
