Replacing Damaged Boards In Hardwood Floor

woodworkbykirk

today i was called to a house we did a complete reno last year to replace some boards in the birch floor which were gouged pretty badly during the move in. i've layed hardwood floors before but never replaced damaged boards

basically i drilled 3/4 holes down the middle of the damaged boards, then worked them out of the tongues and grooves. cleaned out the void, cut out the paper so the pl would grab something. yadda yadda, back with this i had to remove the tongues and bottom portion of the grooves on the pieces with a back cut to them. used construction adhesive etc. etc.

out of 10 pieces or so i replaced, 7 of them i couldnt find , 2 were a little up from the otherrs by a hair and one other had to be ripped down by a sixteenth due to different moisture content im guessing (sitting in garage) ill prob drop back in a couple days to use a little wood fill, requires very little. ive been on some jobs where the flooring installers go through 4 or 5 containers of it on one house

anyhow, my question is it common to not get every piece fitting dead on when doing this do to losing the t&g off of a board

jamestrd

the size difference was from different expansions, whether in the floor itself or the replacement piece..

it happens and will require trimming the board..it can be avoided by having the materials placed in the home a few days prior to the repairs.

you should have to take of the toungue, but will always have to remove the bottom of the groove..

next time,, just take a circular, make 2 cuts down the middle of the board(set depth of blade first to 3/4)... then pull out middle piece, then both sides..much easier than the way you did it.
after removing bottom of groove,but leaving toungue., cut board to size and drive board in at angle slipping toungue into groove(get your mind out of the gutter) using rubber mallet and bang board into place gently until it slips in..sometime you may need to place anohter board you are putting in and use metal side to hammer to bang hard after it is fitted and inplace to drive it down so that it is flush to adjacent boards.

genecarp

good post new guy. Thanx

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s. donato

call me silly... but i never use a circular saw to cut out the wood in a finished/occupied space. i sit there with my chisels and break it out in pieces. i do break out the FMM once in a while but a chisel is usually fine for me JMHO.

as for the rest of the replace method i have always had to shave a board down even when acclimated. i think it has more to do with the floor just getting tighter as you nail the original down and that creates tighter floors - ie makes you prettymuch have to rip one side of the wood down.

everything else that James said i agree with though.

on thing that varies for me is depending on the location - i try to pl the wood to the other wood and just face nail the board as to not pl it to the floor and then have issues with expansion and contracting. but that a call i make when i tear out the wood. sometimes its one way sometimes the other. this also gives you less lipage.

PrecisionFloors

Silly.

I use my Festool plunge cut saw and dust extractor You'd use a chisel on a 4' piece

I also do not cut the tongue off, only the bottom of the grooves. As mentioned above a soft faced rubber mallet makes this job a lot easier. Always acclimate the repair pieces prior to fitting. I too use PL adhesive on repairs and have never had a problem...face nailing is a last resort imo.

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woodworkbykirk

right on guys thanks, had i known i was going to do it ahead of time i could have acclamitized the wood, but it was a last minute thing, i was setting up in the morning on a different job then got a call saying i had to go there.

but all in all i was pretty much on the right track, i didnt want to use the saw because of how the home is being lived in, too much fine dust and i didnt have a vac with me, bad enough the gc sent me there and didnt bring any tools i had to go home to pick up my own table saw which im not being payed to provide, plus other tools for a few other little things the ho wanted done

WarnerConstInc.

That is the job for the TS-55, short rail and a CT-22!!!

Works even better for cutting transition strips, or borders.

jamestrd

s donato,

it is evident what occured in this repair..

he stated the extra materials were in the garage, which means they expanded 1/32- 1/16th of an inch... this is what he ripped off.

I never have to trim boards unless there is an expansion differetial between materials, and often in a simialr circumstance as his..

no one can nail a floor tight enough to change the dimension of the board.

if you dont believe me, give it a try..

measure it pre nailed, the nail the hell out of a board and measure the face.. tell me if you shrunk it.. over nailing a floor will cause it to lift and tilt, then need to walk it out, usualy making the board make a cracking or popping sound, but wont make a 21/4 board, 2 3/16ths or smaller..

after 15 years as a wood floor installer/finisher, ive learned a thing or 2 about a thing or 2.

woodmagman

If it is just a ding in the floor, or even a split that may have be made when installing and was missed until you got several rows down.
If you rip down the top ¼” on a ¾” board to a random length, you can take a template, set to the boards width and router out the ding or section that needs face repair. Glue the replacement piece in and weigh it down with something heavy for the time required. Will take only minutes to do and you can do several in one area. Nobody will even know…and if you want to be artsy fartsy you can make butterflies or bowties and just fix the ding. works great for prefinished hardwood.

woodworkbykirk

cool, thanks guys,

as for nailing down, i had to pop a few 18 gauges in 1 piece which was 14" long or so, because the subfloor was a litty wonky, causing the piece to rock, i didnt have a power plane so i plowed out some of the bottom along with kerfing it to give some flex, seemed to have worked,

ill find out in a day or 2 if the HO is happy with the work.

anyhow gotta love finding out you gotta change modes at the drop of a hat, worst part of the 2 days at that house was all the running around getting tools and picking stuff up for other things on the task list