I'm planning out the process for laying the floor.

This is the second floor and I want the planks to run parallel to the line of sight as you walk up the staircase, so you see the boards longways as you enter the second floor.

My guess is to snap a line to give me a good straight starting point (the walls are not guaranteed to be straight), face nail that strip all the way ( will be near the floorboards most of the way) then proceed to the left starting at the top of the nailed in reference strip.

From there the rest of the floor falls out pretty good, but there are a handful of places where I need to go to the right, (let me try to get a pic posted...)

How do you reverse direction? I'd prefer not to face nail the next strip but they will be groove-to-groove, often right out in the field.

Do I fab a "double tongue" to mate the two grooves together, then nail the tongue into the starting strip, then proceed to right as normal?

What is the "right" way to do this - I'm sure there are some cool tricks that a bonehead like myself could implement without too much trouble...


Here's a pic... have to click on it to see...

http://picasaweb.google.com/bobritts/Fl ... 9025050226

Thanks!

- Bob

You can buy or makes splines (double tongues) that are inserted and glued into the grooves. So, you'd glue that into the wood that's installed and then staple/nail the tongue like normal and proceed on you way with the rest of the stuff.

For me, it's just easy enough to go buy them.

Excellent. Thanks for the answer, that makes a lot of sense.

Now... where to buy - just measure the tongue, multiply width by two and look for something close at the hardware store, or do supply houses know what a "hardwood floor spline" is?

The splines are sized to be the equivalent of two tongues. So, when you glue in the spline on the first board, it will look like the tongue side of the board. Then you nail that like a regular piece.

So, I think the calculation would simply be how many linear feet of reversing do you need to do?

I buy the splines at hardwood flooring stores. Some sell those, some don't. Near me, Great Western Flooring, FCA, Lumber Luquidators and one other sell to the pubic.

Before you by a ton though, make sure that the splines fit right. Some are dimensioned a little differently than others and may not fit quite right. I bough a bunch of splines nad had to hand sand them because they were too thick. They fit in my Shaw flooring, but wiould not in my Tembec. Inconvenient, but not too terrible.

If needed, you can make them. There's a thread or two on here about how to do that.