Question about T&G flooring (verses on wall)

[Richard]

Wife wants to build another room. Wants to put wood planks on the floor or, maybe on the wall instead (or maybe both??? (don't know)

She wants to use Maple. We have several maple trees here that are within range of the house, should they ever fall....so we're thinking on taking them down on our terms.

We could send this to a local saw mill (done this before) and they can chop the logs into whatever we want.

Tree probably has 30-40 feet of straight trunk before the first branch.

On the the crux of my question.

I've got a 3 1/2 HP Milwaukee router for making the tongue & groove. Would need to get a bit for the "relief" cuts that go on the bottom (no idea what they're called)

My question is, does it matter which side of the grain those relief cuts go? If you are looking at the growth rings as (((( would they go on the left side or the right side? (using my fancy diagram of ((( to illustrate)


Side note, yes I know this is a lot of work....but she loves the idea of using wood from the farm, tree is free and all I need to buy are the various bits.


Second side note: loaded some cedar and oak logs to trailer and took to same saw mill. Guy there laughed when my brother in law drove in.... he said something like "normally, when someone calls me about cutting their tree, they drive in with an eight or ten inch diameter tree.... (those were approaching 30+ diameter). When we got them back, they were absolutely beautiful boards. Had some Cedar in there and it was flat out gorgeous.

This currently standing maple is another quite large tree.

 

[Richard]

Oh... forgot to ask... if instead of flooring, the boards go on the wall, would we still need to make those relief cuts on the back??

(I'm presuming so)

 

[mred2]

I would think yes on the relief cut. How do you plan to dry it? I would think that it would have to be dry before it is nailed down.

 

[Richard]

Yeah, that's a good question. Fortunately, "the room" isn't built nor started.....and I don't intend on starting it during winter!!!

So, if we cut the tree, it can be stacked/stickered until next spring/summer??? (no idea if that's enough time to air dry)

Depending on what she wants to do, I was wondering if there'd be any merit in making 1" boards for the floor instead of 3/4".

Not for many reasons other than "why not, if we have the quantity of wood". I'd think that might be a (small) plus if we sold the house down the road (???)

Now, my HOPE is, I can get this room idea out of her head. Not sure that two people in 3,000 sq/ft need another room, especially when she's yacking about how much work it is to take care of the place. (go figure??)

She's just a "projects" type gal and loves doing things like that in spite of our 'need' for it.

 

[mred2]

The only real problem with thicker floor might be where it meets other floors, door ways. My wood floors go into tile for the kitchen. With the board under the tile, both floors are the same height. And I love your dog. I lost mine a couple of years back, 13 years old and 155 pounds. I purchased mine in Tenn.

 

[Budweiser John]

Richard unless your planning a very small addition I would suggest you take your lumber to a mill shop and have the stock straight lined ripped, surfaced, and the tong and grove cut on a molding machine or sticker. A hand router and said bits simply do not have enough moxie to accomplish what you need to do.
Raw lumber intended for flooring should be dried to 6% which pretty much dictates kiln drying.
Bottom line, home grown flooring can get to be really expensive.

My comments come from over 40 years of building experience.
B. John

 

[MickeyDBC]

We did T&G on a ceiling out of cypress about 20 years ago. A router does OK for cutting butt joints but for any full length work I used a 3 HP shaper. Most of our long edges were side cut at the mill, but I still had to do some custom long cuts for the trim out. It can be a great look and I am planning to do it when I build a little pavilion behind the ranch house.

 

[BrokenTrack]

Wife wants to build another room. Wants to put wood planks on the floor or, maybe on the wall instead (or maybe both??? (don't know)

I have built about 90% of my house from wood that I have felled, yarded, sawn into boards on the sawmill, and then fitted into place without problems, and that includes my 1000 sq foot great room and its flooring.

I used a 1-1/2 hp hand held router to make my flooring although it was ship lapped and not tongue and groove, but a minor deviation to say the least. I did not make any relief cuts on the back, and it stayed flat just fine, but I used wide pine flooring and not maple.

To join the ends of the boards, I use a biscuit jointer because it is fast and keeps the ends perfectly aligned.

As for drying the lumber, the old fashioned way was to just use your house. You put the sawn wood underneath a bed, or somewhere in the house, but out of the way, and in a years time, the lumber dries and aciculates itself to the house that it is going in.

With a hardwood like Maple, you probably want to sand the wood prior to installing it, but with my White Pine, I never did. It was sawn on a bandsaw so it was already pretty smooth, but after a year of walking on the floor even in the shoeless house that we are, it smoothed the wood right out just as if we had sanded it. Just last week I painted the floor, although it could have been polyurethane. I just wanted a white, cleaner look that made the big room look even bigger, bright, and airy.

 

[BrokenTrack]

As a side note: I am a huge believer in doing as much for yourself as you can.

As stated, about 90% of the wood in my home came from the farm here. But the concrete has also come from the gravel pit that we have, which was used for the foundation, as well as our concrete countertops. The slate we have in the house was taken from where we cleared some forest into field, and was bulldozing out boulders of slate, so we really have built this house with material from the farm as much as possible.