Well, the 2nd half isn't anyways. I'm right about half-way across the 3' wide hallway and am about out of room to swing the hammer for the nailer. For the last row I tried grabbing the hammer by the head and hitting it like a caveman, but I ended up having to fix more staples than actually went in correctly the first time. I assume this is typical, and you start blind nailing at this point? One thing I don't like about blind nailing is that the floor doesn't seem to be as "tight" to the next board and the floor; unless you step on it just right as you nail along.

Any tricks? Or a link to a previous discussion...I didn't see any.

Looks like I will have to hand-nail the last 4 rows? Or in your opinion can I squeeze that 4th row in blind nailing pneumatic at a slightly steeper angle?

I use a piece of cardboard up against the wall
for protection. Helps a lot.

Keith

Thats where you would start blind nailing, then for getting the boards tight...
http://www.hardwoodflooringtalk.com/php ... last+board

Thanks for the link Jerry, so I do need to blind nail. I've blind nailed the last ~3 rows, have ~3 left. I made this simple "device" to help me squeeze any boards together that have slight a slight gap; however I have a 4" level (straightedge) and I'm checking every board up to it for straightness before I install it, and only using STRAIGHT ones for the hallway. I've learned that a board with a decent bow can be straightened out with the pneumatic stapler, but blind nailing doesn't straighten boards out that well.

Smart guy that dave.

It looks like these last 2 1/3 row will need to be glued and face-nailed. This 3rd to last row had a bit of tongue splitting because of the steep angle of blind nailing, definitely don't think I can blind nail the 2nd full row out. I assume this 2nd to last row I will glue and face nail along the joists, and then the last row I will rip, glue the tongue/groove with the 1st full row out, and glue/face nail in place?

I'll give it a shot I s'pose.

OK I can pre-drill and CAREFULLY blind-nail by hand the 2nd to last row. Last row I guess will be glued and face-nailed.

Dave - As selfish as this sounds, I'm really glad to have you going through all this now... I'm learning a ton of stuff I didn't know I didn't know.

Looks like the project is coming along well.

What size nails are you using for the hand nailing?

Also - curious to calibrate my own expectations... Once you finished prepping the subfloor and started nailing the floor planks down, how many hours have you spent so far for how many square feet of floor? I'm trying to gauge how long to expect my project will take, 1500 sf which includes ALL the bedrooms so the pressure is on to not dawdle.

Thanks,

Bob

Hahaha I feel the same way. I did a ton of reading on here before I started; and even more since I laid the first board to figure out how to overcome obstacles and see how to get around issues or questions as I run into them.

For the hand nailing, I'm using 2" 6D "Bright Finish" nails with a 5/64" pilot hole. Make sure to put some cardboard against the wall (GREAT tip walkonus!). It helps a lot if you wrap your index finger around the backside of the nail as you're hammering it in to keep it from bending down on you. Definitely get a punch too.

I really don't have a good estimate on how long it has taken me; I tend to dawdle quite a bit, and I have an incredibly short attention span. I'm not sure what your layout is, but if it's fairly straight-forward, you should be able to knock it out at a decent pace.

The thing that took me the longest was first figuring out where to start, then realizing my stairs were crooked and fixing that; and then laying the first row or 3 and making sure they were perfectly straight.

When you are leveling the subfloor, make sure to mark any low areas with a bright marker (like red), so that you can see it and remember to raise that area up before you lay down your 15# paper. I forgot to do that, and had to pull up 3 rows and then level it out, basically had to start over. At least with a red sharpie you'll see it a lot better than pencil (which I failed to see until I noticed the big dip).

I have also been just going one board at a time, walking back and forth to the pile to get the right size, since there was no room to rack out a few rows ahead of me. Now that I'll be working in the open again that should help to speed things up. Make sure to keep your end joints at a minimum 6" of stagger. Also try not to "staircase"...and my personal preference is to keep from "H'ing" between two rows (having two end gaps lined up with one board in between)

But if you've got the room to swing a hammer on the nailer it'll go pretty quickly, it's the blind-nailing that takes a while, especially if you have to go back and set all the nail heads.

Hope that helps some, if I can help out just shout; I check this forum religiously.


Another trick I did today:

Dave, you're getting the idea and hang of it. Way to go.

Thanks Gary!

Here's what I have done so far...




I've got a decent amount done. The rest SHOULD go fairly quickly, the hallway sucked. On the right side by the kitchen you can see where I had to rip a couple boards to try and get the floor half-way into the doorway/wall.



Man I can't get over how much I love the look of this wood. I guess I had 2 different camera angles in these pics, not sure why one came out so much darker, but it looks more crisp, or something.

That looks great! - though your dog looks like he's not allowed on the new floor and it's making him sad...

I would suspect the difference in darkness of the images is the 2 different light sources ( 1 florescences and 1 incandescents?) and which one has the greatest affect on the cameras sensors.

Looks great Dave! Is that maple? I am still at the stage of tearing out particle board and replacing with 1/2" ply. Man, my subfloors suck. I have been trying to flatten it out with shingles and felt paper as much as possible, but I don't think it's really helping that much. Once I get all the ply down, I'll rent an edge sander and hit the real high areas. And I guess when I start laying I can throw a little felt paper under the wood to help fill in any low areas.

I do have one question Dave. How hard was it to take up the boards you had already nailed? I have a feeling I will be doing some of that.

Just want to tell you pros, you guys have my respect. It takes a heck of a lot of work to do a quality floor.

Bill M.