Hi,
Looking for a little expert advice if possible.
Georgian house. Have lifted entire room of tongue & groove pine floorboards and am replacing them with reclaimed floorboards, also pine, and left in the room to acclimatise for a few weeks.
I have run the reclaimed boards through my thicknesser to renew them. I've only done the face side, and all to the same thickness (obviously).
I'm fitting them using floorboard clamps (the ones that grip the joist and push the board snugly on to the previous one) in combination with cauls cut from the grooved edge of some offcuts, and a first fix nail gun with 65mm ring shank nails at about 45 degrees through the tongues.
As I'm fitting the boards I'm finding that they are lipping badly, with the new board's edge always rising higher than the adjoining edge of the previous one by a millimetre or so; sometimes even two.
I've got the gun set so that it doesn't smash the tongue, and I'm driving the final few mm manually with a hammer and punch. I've made sure I'm punching the nails through far enough that they're not fouling the T&G.
I'm pretty sure I'm not over-clamping. Have tried reducing the clamping pressure but that doesn't help - I end up with a gap as well as a lip which if anything makes it more obvious.
I guessed that being reclaimed Victorian boards there might be a bit of inconsistency in the T&G machining, so I've measured to double check and they seem fine. Plus, the fact that they're all lipping high on the same edge rather than being a variety of high/low seems to point to something I'm doing wrong rather than any variation in the T&G.
If it comes to it I can just go over the floor with a sander afterwards but having gone to all the effort of planing the boards I'd rather not have to.
I've tried googling for answers but everyone's talking about modern manufactured flooring systems designed to go on top of a subfloor, not replacing actual floorboards.
Any and all advice greatly appreciated. I'm stumped as to why this is happening.
Cheers,
Bruce L
Looking for a little expert advice if possible.
Georgian house. Have lifted entire room of tongue & groove pine floorboards and am replacing them with reclaimed floorboards, also pine, and left in the room to acclimatise for a few weeks.
I have run the reclaimed boards through my thicknesser to renew them. I've only done the face side, and all to the same thickness (obviously).
I'm fitting them using floorboard clamps (the ones that grip the joist and push the board snugly on to the previous one) in combination with cauls cut from the grooved edge of some offcuts, and a first fix nail gun with 65mm ring shank nails at about 45 degrees through the tongues.
As I'm fitting the boards I'm finding that they are lipping badly, with the new board's edge always rising higher than the adjoining edge of the previous one by a millimetre or so; sometimes even two.
I've got the gun set so that it doesn't smash the tongue, and I'm driving the final few mm manually with a hammer and punch. I've made sure I'm punching the nails through far enough that they're not fouling the T&G.
I'm pretty sure I'm not over-clamping. Have tried reducing the clamping pressure but that doesn't help - I end up with a gap as well as a lip which if anything makes it more obvious.
I guessed that being reclaimed Victorian boards there might be a bit of inconsistency in the T&G machining, so I've measured to double check and they seem fine. Plus, the fact that they're all lipping high on the same edge rather than being a variety of high/low seems to point to something I'm doing wrong rather than any variation in the T&G.
If it comes to it I can just go over the floor with a sander afterwards but having gone to all the effort of planing the boards I'd rather not have to.
I've tried googling for answers but everyone's talking about modern manufactured flooring systems designed to go on top of a subfloor, not replacing actual floorboards.
Any and all advice greatly appreciated. I'm stumped as to why this is happening.
Cheers,
Bruce L