I am laying prefinished 3/4" Birch. Need to reverse the direction in order to go into a closet. Three questions:

1) In order to avoid face nailing, and the corresponding nail marks, I have been pre-drilling and nailing both the tongue the grooves on a 45 deg. angle and setting the nails by hand with a punch. Are there any issues with this method.

2) Can't find splines locally - so was planning to cut my own on a table saw. Does the material have to be birch or can I use some scraps of pine or maple? Do I have to pay attention to grain orientation when cutting the splines?

3) Should I glue the spines on both sides or only one?

Thanks in advance for your response!

1) No need to nail into the groove. Simply install temporary blocks behind that board. When you go to reverse with the spline, after the spline is installed, toe nail through that.
2) Spline can be another hardwood. For strength, the spline should be cut with the direction of the grain; just like a board.
3) Glue the spline into the groove with yellow glue and toe nail. No need to glue the reversing board to the spline as now the spline has become a "tongue".

What Gary said Don. It would also be a good idea to do a test fit to make sure the spline is not too wide so the reversing board will close up good and tight.

Glad you finally got your flooring.

There really is no need to glue the spline. It won't hurt anything,but it won't help either.

Always gotta be the one to disagree!

Me? Naw..

Hi Guys,

Thanks for your advice. Very much appreciated.

Jerry - Yes, finally got the hardwood from Lauzon. There is a lot of colour variation in the Red Birch - it is pretty wild looking stuff - some red, some dark brown, some white stripes. At least the floor won't be boring! My better half likes it and that's a good thing!

The finish is real smooth and there seems to be no shortage of the longer pieces - some 4.5 ft long. Got about 60 sf down so far. A little tough on the lower back - but sure beats setting ceramic tile!

I have one tricky area that I would like to send a digital photo of, but don't have a website to post them to. Any of you guys know to get a photo on this forum without having a website?

Best Regards,

Don

Hi Don, You can email the picture to Ken Fisher who is the owner of this fine place. He will post it for you along with your question.

Have a great day