milling own pine tongue and groove

DangerMouse

Orrrrrr..... buy the woodmaster with routers and rip saw, and run it all off in one pass.
Then sell it on CL when you're done to recover most of the cost.
I gotta tell you, when I used it, it was awesome, and that was pretty hard wood. It'd FLY through pine.

DM

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chulett

Thanks for all the info! I was mowing place today and noticed I had some 3/4 x 12 boards stacked that was left over from construction...It has been exposed to the weather for about a year now and has turned grey..I ran a piece thru the planer and after clearing to grey away I had some beautiful pine!

Question I have is:

It planed down to 9/16 thickness..Im not sure all the boards will require this, but if they all do...can I use the 9/16 for floors?

The lengths vary, but most are 16 ft long

If I can use that thickness...can I still t&g them, or should I biscuit them on the edges and ends, nail em with the pneumatic and also face nail?

What are my options here! Dont wanna pass up free wood! (wait I did pay for it already!)

oh'mike

If the tongue is a bit lower than center you should be fine---I suggest staples not cleats for that.

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chulett

Thank you sir!

I read about biscuit joining em..any ideas? I guess t&g is better? Any insights?

chulett

Ok, hold On! I messed up! I mean a rabbit joint! Use a rabbit joint to create the overlap..That would be faster than forming the t&g, and get the same effect..right?

Sorry bout the mix up on the terminology! Im still green!

sdsester

Biscuits are thin but fun but have no integral support of their own and are simply nice for keeping things in line. Great for planked tabletops and things. Maybe I am missing something but I don't see why they would be recommended for flooring at all? I guess they must sell biscuits and biscuit cutters for thicker stuff but wouldn't you have to spend a ton of time lining up up the slots and gluing both sides of board edges.

And how in the World could you nail a side biscuited floor except down through the top? Could look cool I guess until the nails, or screws started discoloring in pine or coming up and tearing socks. You are going to need that T&G, I think, just to get the floor down and not squeaking (much) are you not?

And by the way, before I forget? As you cut the T&G in relation to thickness of your floorboards, do see how flexible your floor nailer is with regard to positioning the nails? It would be a shame to see your beautiful T&G cut to low or two high for the nailer to hit on target?

Yes of course you have to think through joinery for the perfectly square ends of your boards.

Just a comment and a compliment if you will take it. You seem willing to learn and take this all on. You can do all this with a router (although I love the idea of couple) and some bits. Or a joiner or something if you found one with sharp blades cheap.

Practice pieces sport! Don't start with the 6 or 16 footers the first pass through the routers.

chulett

Sorry for the mistake! I was meaning to say shiplapping the pine with a rabbet joint!

have been doing some research on shiplapping..I have a pneumatic floor nailer, and am wondering if I can use it on the bottom rabbet joints? I realize I will still have to face nail to prevent cupping!

The reason I had to plan the 1x12 down to 9/16 is because of the cupping!


So shiplap or t&g?

So many choices!

sdsester

I think I am starting to lose where you are headed. You now think you might want to shiplap the joints and not T&G them? For a floor? And straight (or even angle) nail (or however fasten down) through the pristine wood surface, the shiplap joints and on into the subfloor?

First of all you will be reducing the strength of the flooring at each shiplap joint by the amount you have to Dado off of each side and in far enough into the width of the board to be able to plunk a straight plunked fastener down through. Instead of a solid piece of would carved up only with a T&G you now have half or something of each matching depth of board missing to line up with each for an even top surface.

If nothing else, I think it will look extremely goofy.

You are on the right track with T&G I think. You do need joinery for the ends or you will have to straight nail ALL OF THEM but you figured that out. You can always countersink some screws and cut some pine plugs to look cool for that part of things.

chulett

lol ok! Sorry to confuse you! I got alot going thru my mind right now!

So t&g is the way to go!

I will use t&g and still face nail since the boards are 12" (sites suggest 3 nails per joist)

Should I rip a small relief on the bottom of the board and then apply poly to help prevent cupping? Some sites say no relief cut is needed for pine, but I dont want them to cup!

Also, can I t&g a board that is 9/16" thick? I am sure I can! Gotta figure out how!

Yes, I am making it hard on myself tackling this project, but I love to work on this stuff, and it is a physical get away from the stresses of my job!

sdsester

I realize things were starting to run in strange different directions. I was not suggesting there is anything different between a biscuit joint and one T&G other than in one case you have to destroy wood for a groove or two in two pieces of lumber, use an insert and somehow fix it in place. With T&G you probably do extreme damage too but at least both sides of the material remain,sweat and dry out together and one hopes for many years in the case of the flooring integral.

Anyhow, I also realized our OP is doing a great job of trying to figure this out and this is now one of my fave all time posts. One of the things that troubles me is the discussion of joinery and how it is used. I found this description of joinery which is not bad and hope others like it.

http://www.raygirling.com/wwjoints.htm