I have had some 150 year old red oak timbers cut made into 6", 5" and 4" flooring with only a skip planing done to keep its rustic feel, the bottom of course is planed and grooved. The edges have a tongue and groove but the ends are just butt cut square. I know in the 1800's this was a common practice but during install is there anything I should do special. I have read about gluing the ends and also have read that countersinking holes and putting 2 screws in and then plugging is also an option. In the flooring that I have removed (I remodel homes of the 1800's) and 99% of the time there is not a grove on the end only on the sides. I do not want this to buckle on the ends which honestly I cannot see it doing as the sides should hold it down but I just wanted to check before I started laying this floor in about a month. The mill did an beautiful job of keeping the old saw marks and stuff in tact, took 4 months to get the milling done though which put this floor behind. Plan is not to sand but to hand scrape the floor then obital sand the floor lightly to smooth it out. Ton of additional work but the result should be awesome! Once I start in about 3 weeks I will shoot some photos and post them. Any answer to the butt end question would be helpful though I am pretty sure I will be fine!

Rob

flooring moves (contracts and expands) along the width of the piece not the length. The side match should keep the floor down if its installed correctly and their is not a moisture problems. The main problem is the but ends are probably not square and will have to be trimmed.

That is exactly what I thought, I am not a contractor of hardwood flooring but I have installed a lot of flooring in houses as a remodeler, this is for my own house and I had this flooring custom made the mill did an awesome job so I want to make sure that I follow up with an awesome job on my end. Thanks a lot for your response.

Rob