removing the black stuff from nails

[donoinmass]

Wow...awesome job!!! Cant wait to see the final finish. Its going to look beautiful!!!

[khwils]

Phil,

Do you have any tips for the floor patches?
How did you keep the router square when you cut the ends out for your patch?
Did you remove the tongue when you slipped a patch board in and face nail?
Did you find any helpful internet sites?
I have a douglas fir floor that has a few buckled boards but they are really long - like 12 or 16 ft! Would you put these back in smaller pieces?

Thanks,
Kurt

[philsvintageradios]

ok here are a few tips.. yes good reading on the web if you do some searches..

I used a cupboard door as a guide for the router. lay it on the floor and check that it is square and then kneel on that while running the router. It works best to put the board on the side you are keeping. make the cut across the board with a 1/8 straight cut router bit. you can square up the corners with a chisel after. don't over run your cut.

use skillsaw to make a two cuts in the piece being removed. use a chisel to continue this split if the wall is in the way of the saw going right to the end of the board. if the center bit is sort of wedge shaped it can help sometimes to get it out.
once the center bit is out the side with the groove comes out easy. the bit left with the tonge has nails , use a chisel to split that to expose and remove the nails.

fix the subfloor if you happen to have weak boards. clean it up so no nails stick up or debris under to mess up the hight. cut some tar paper to cover the area.

If your replacement pieces are thinner you can add some more tar papper cardboard or whatever to help lift it a tiny bit.

I cut into some of the good boards out longer to stagger the joint.

start on the side with the tounge sticking out of the old flooring , nails always go on the side with the tongue.

at first you'd think just slip it in right? but then you find that because the board is on a downward angle and you can bend it down to slide in, but the tongue of the adjacent board prevents this. remove about 3 inches of the tongue where it interferes, not on the board you are inserting, on the adjacent board. hard to explain but it would be the tongue about 3 inches away from the start of the slot where you are inserting the new board.

at the end of the patch you need to get the board in somehow. If it is a short piece you can turn it on it's end and use a chisel to split the bottom part of the groove off on about a 45 degree angle.
then slip the small strip you broke away under the tongue. put glue on it and lay the replacement board down. again hard to explain but what I did was split a piece off the back where it doesn't show so I could get the board in and then I glued it back together.

don't be afraid to face nail, use galvanized finishing nails where you need to , set them in putty hides them pretty well, it's par for the course.

It is pretty hard to split a long board and piece it together the way I explained. in some places I just cut a strip to support the tonge of the board at the end of my patch, then glued it in place , then used a bead of sub floor glue to fill the void of missing wood. you don't wan to glue it everywhere, but you can use this at the end of your patch if you want.

as far as lengths go it is a matter of where you need to replace the wood, how picky you are , if you stagger the joints around , it takes your eye away from it. In my case I felt I could live with some joints, But I couldn't allow a bunch of joints in a row. Some of the good flooring must be removed in order to stagger the joints. the other factor is how much spare replacement flooring you can get.

I didn't find it easy to re-use much of what I removed and my 3/14 is one of the more common sizes. even so, I used pieces from 3 or 4 floors and it had cracks, nails, holes and dents and most of it was a bit thinner than my unsanded floor. also the width of the tongues can vary from batch to batch.
try and source out your material first. take a scrap of your old flooring with you to compare.

keep an eye on the allignment as you go, otherwise you can work yourself into a situation where one side gets ahead or behind causing the last piece to need to be non parallel. you may find you need to leave a small crack here or there to keep the alignment.

use galvanized nails with heads driven through just above the tongue on a 45 degree angle anywhere you can. every 18 inches or so, and near the joints try to hold it down so it isn't springing up near the ends. Otherwise that playes games with the sander.

cut the hole first, then cut the piece to fit. Never the reverse.

make all your cuts on the replacement pieces on about a 1-2 degree angle to give clearance to keep the fit where it shows ( on top) tight.

make sure the replacement piece is butted tight endways before you drive the first nail.

the scraps you removed with the skilsaw can be used to put over the tongue so you have something to hammer against to drive the flooring tight.

I had lots of places with 3/4 inch holes that had been drilled for plumbing. I found it easier and less noticible to replace patches. short patches near the walls don't really stand out too much. Very hard to plug holes invisibly. It can be done with putty or with wood plugs. Leee valley sells a plug cutter that will cut tapered plugs with a drill ( then you can use the same material as your floor) I used a lot of the plugs on my stairs , but then wehn I did my floor I decided they weren't any less noticible than the putty was, if the color of the putty is right.

it is possible to do the putty, then scribe lines in , then fill the lines with another color of putty to simulate the grain pattern.


when you face nail drill holes first to stop the wood from splitting. also drive them at angles , it holds the stuff from lifting better than if they were driven straight down. two nails driven at different angles holds way better than two nails driven straight in and parallel to one another.

when driving your nails , start as many as you can, but leave setting them right in till last. if you get half way through nailing the board down , then it splits or for some reason you want to remove it you will be thankful you didn't set every nail right in, just as easy to finish the last 1/4 and set the nails after you are happy with the placement of the boards.

[philsvintageradios]

oh one other thing, before you go driving lots of nails through the subfloor, check downstairs to see if you have any wiring in the way. a lot of mine went right through the subfloor. It's ok that area will be full of insulation and hidden anyway. I went downstairs and bent any over that I could reach. you just don't want to put a nail through a waterpipe or a wire.

[mejane]

Phil, you're giving me hope once again! We did a job similar to this at our old place, but it was hard finding old Fir and we ended up driving 3 hours to pick some up. I'm guessing yours are Fir as well? Where did you find the pieces? Your floor looks amazing, I can't wait to see it finished!

[Leslie Ap]

Phil- that is incredible. Just amazing. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this process!

[philsvintageradios]

Thanks so much for the nice complements, really makes a difference for me.

I got the spare pieces from a place locall called Jacks, they specialize in old house parts.
I guess availability has a lot to do with area. Our 20's houuse is old for this area and there aren't a lot being wrecked , But the land value is high, so there are some getting ripped down to build larger. I would think this would be a different scenario in say the midwest US or other areas where there was a higher population.

I spent the weekend on it , I had previously filled any sizable cracks with latex filler using a jumbo syringe. I used the putty for outdoors. I always wondered why they even sold the indoor type putty? the putty stood up pretty well through the acid treatment but there was some imperfections. I did a coat of danish oil , that gave me a better look at the color the wood will be.
I went to the place I get supplies from and asked him ( Mohawk finishing supplies) the guy there is quite knowlegable.
I got some oil based putty to use now there is oil on the floor. I am using pigmented toners to adjust the color. It came quite thick so I mixed in some acetone to thin it a bit. Oh I asked him why they even sold the indoor type putty and learned that the outdoor putty won't take stain as well.. so that's why they have two different kinds.. makes sense. I had started just always buying the outdoor one after I absent mindedly used the indoor kind on my balcony railing.. don't do that

I've been going over and for any gaps I still don't like.. I put a piece of masking tape along either side of the crack, then use a little spatula to fill the small gap between the two pieces of tape and pull the tape off while it is still wet. after it's dry I can use some more danish oil to keep my sandpaper wet to level the putty without dry sanding. I used a whole roll of tape and started going bug eyed from laing it alongside each crack.

Now I have a layer of clear oil down ,I mixed 3/4 of a gallon and a quart of cherry colored oil, and about a cup of dark walnut danish oil. that gave me a weak concoction of colored oil. I will do a second coat with that and at the same time level any putty patches off.

at this point it is getting a bit fiddly. some dark spots I touched up by gouging out and filling. That's a slippery slope though as it could get to be never ending and some marks and spots are inevitable. I think I will do the coat of colored danish oil and if the stuff that is left still bugs me I could spend more time at it .

I have heard that one shouldn't fill every crack because of expansion/ contraction. . I did fill most of them anyway. I did the same upstairs with no bad results. It could cause buckling I suppose but I think with a good coating of poly the floor isn't going to change size too much. I like the feeling of getting it smooth with no cracks it will make it easier to clean. If it buckles it's my fault..

Phil

[khwils]

Phil,

Thanks, that's basically what I did on the ONE floor I fixed. I replaced a 1 foot by 5 foot plywood patch and I also replaced a few 1 foot long board sections that were bad/buckled. The shorter patches were the length of the whole board so I didn't have to cut one off at the end.

I also discovered that the 3x5 patch I laid in the boards needed to be spaced a little to fit right - if that makes sense?

I've also read to use a chisel to cut the board short.

I didn't cut my boards with a 2 degree angle for fit, I will next time.

I have some new douglas fir boards to fix my current floor issues, we'll see how it goes. I like this part of renovating/restoring - I'm sick that way! I'm getting tired of painting but the rewards are incredible and immediate.

Let's see, in the last few weekends I've replaced some K&T wiring, rewired a complete kitchen adding recepticles(they didn't account for a microwave or dedicated fridge line in 1924!!). Had to run the wire runs from the basement to the attic! I've patched a ceiling, patched two rooms of walls and built out a tub enclosure for tiling purposes. Installed two rooms of wainscoating. Added a fan/light to the bath. Painted 5 rooms and a stairway. Hmm getting close! I want to sand the floors and refinish (2 brs, dr, lr and hall) but I'm running out of time!

Oh, if you are going to poly the floor can't you go over it first and fill the cracks with the poly? I would think it would make a great filler and blend in nicely??
Kurt

[mejane]

Egads Phil...filling in every crack? And here I thought that the cracks gave the floor character!

I just want to fill the damaged areas and screw holes..even those I won't go overboard on. I was interested to read what you use to fill them, I'm going to have to do some research myself.

[mejane]

Hi Kurt, I missed your last line in your post...but that's how think of the cracks too....just let the poly settle in and harden and voila!