Mill Hardwood Flooring? or Buy it?

[huckster]

That is a question a buddy of mine and I are considering.

What is necessary to process seasoned kiln dried wood into installable 3/4" hardwood planks (2"wide)?

Plan the wood?
Table saw it?
Then shaper or router for tounge and groove?

Does anyone know anybody in the triangle area that does this kind of processing?

Is there a machine that will do all 3?

I guess the question is "Will we save money? Will it be worth it? I guess it depends on the price of the finished product. Has anyone every done this? Were talking about 2,000 sq/ft of hardwood. My buddy Andre is considering using some kind of Maple.

Thanks,
~Huck

[cskipper]

Total price of buying it already finished is one consideration. You'd need to consider the cost of the wood, the equipment necessary to accomplish the task and finishing products. Another significant one would be the time involved in creating the finished pieces yourself.

I'm not in the triangle area, so don't know if anyone can do this for you or has the equipment you can use. You would probably be extremely proud of it if you could cut them yourself. You'd just have to weigh the pros and cons.

Someone more knowledgeable will undoubtedly offer a more useful answer.

[DaveO]

I think that you would make out better buying. Especially if you get it pre-finished because the quality and durability of the finish is much greater than anything you could apply.
You could make the flooring with standard shop tools..tablesaw, planer, RT, but it will take a very long time and be a very tedious task (read potential dangerous due to repetitiveness).
A shaper with power feeder would be the best to cut the T&G and relieve the back.
Woodmaster makes a moulder/planer that with the proper knives and heads can do all the operations to turn out hardwood flooring, but it isn't cheap nor very fast. A buddy of mine has and runs one in Farmville, VA.

http://www.woodmastertools.com/s/planers.cfm

Dave

[PeteM]

Kyle has done some flooring. He mills and klyn dries the lumber and sends it out for milling. I forget the name of the place but if interested you can PM Kyle.

pete

[Mtnman]

When I was building my house up here in Little Switzerland NC, my neighbor had some large trees removed to improve his view. They were a mix of white oak and hickory.
He offered me the wood and I had it milled into flooring which I installed in the house. It is truly spectacular! Most boards are 6 in wide and the hickory and oak mix well together giving it that old fashioned look.
The cost of milling is about the same as what you would pay for the flooring if you bought it ready made. I installed and finished it my self, and I tell everyone that the wood in the flooring came from right here on my mountain!
So if you want something special, go for it! I'm glad I did.

[Kyle]

It depends what kind of wood and width desired. If you go with wide plank in walnut or cherry it is much cheaper to have it molded/milled yourself. I define wide plank as 5-7" wide. Any wider it is recommended to have it screwed or pegged to the floor.

I just finished my own floors in #1 cherry finished width 6" . I will hire a sander and finisher and install myself.


HW floors can be VERY expensive depending upon what you wish to do..

[Jim Murphy]

Lumber Liquidators just delivered their weekly spam to my mailbox. They're offering 3/4 X 3-1/4 millrun maple from Colston for $1.99/SF now thru Memorial Day. And, no interest, no payments for 6 months. I used Colston utility grade red oak for my shop floor. Although the utility grade had many shorts and some burn marks, the machining was nearly perfect. For that price, and free money for six months, I wouldn't hesitate to buy instead of DIY.
Jim

[Kyle]

3.25" that is end matched for 1.99/sf is a good price.

Again it depends upon the look you are going for. If you want wide face(5"+) to buy it even unfinished (walnut or cherry) will cost a lot. To do it yourself and you can save a ton and have a super floor.

I would recommend if you are not going wide plank and don't care what kind of wood to use a lumber liquidator outlet. If you want wide plank molding it only costs .30-60/ linear foot depending uopn the species.

[Jim Murphy]

Well, let's see if my math and logic are correct. If not, Scott Smith will surely ring in and he'll be one up on me (presently tied at 1:1). At a 5" width, one would need 2.4 lf to generate a square foot. At the high end of 0.60/sf to mill it, you have $1.44/sf in milling alone. Add to that the cost of KD material and waste inherent in working with the raw material, and you are spending some rather large bucks.

But then, you only have one chance to ride this train of life, so if you can afford the first class seats, don't condescend to mix with the proletariat.

FWIW, I tend to like the 2-1/4" stuff, but my taste runs to 18th Century Georgian Colonial. That does not mean, however, that I consider myself anything but firmly ensconced within the bourgeoisie, where I intend to remain.

(What a beautiful day this Thursday the 24th of May, 2007)

Jim

[Kyle]

Originally Posted by fernhollowman

Well, let's see if my math and logic are correct. If not, Scott Smith will surely ring in and he'll be one up on me (presently tied at 1:1). At a 5" width, one would need 2.4 lf to generate a square foot. At the high end of 0.60/sf to mill it, you have $1.44/sf in milling alone. Add to that the cost of KD material and waste inherent in working with the raw material, and you are spending some rather large bucks.

But then, you only have one chance to ride this train of life, so if you can afford the first class seats, don't condescend to mix with the proletariat.

FWIW, I tend to like the 2-1/4" stuff, but my taste runs to 18th Century Georgian Colonial. That does not mean, however, that I consider myself anything but firmly ensconced within the bourgeoisie, where I intend to remain.

(What a beautiful day this Thursday the 24th of May, 2007)

Jim

BUT as I caveated..You do this with cherry or walnut and its a bargain. Cost on wide plank (5"-7") unfinished run anywhere from 4.00-8.00 a square foot.

I have sawn and dried lumber for people at .90-1.00/ bf and they have it moulded for an additional .30-.60/bf (.30-60 LF using 6" material is the same as a bf) you have 1.20-1.60/ sq foot for the material.

[AdamO]

I agree with Kyle.

I'm near Charlotte, so I can't help you with particulars in the Triangle, but I'm about halfway done with a similar process, so I'll let you know what I've figured out so far.

As I see it, doing it yourself means getting local guys to mill the lumber and then mold the flooring. Running it yourself sounds like a nightmare to me. I decided that if the costs were comparable, that I would prefer to pay local guys than give my money to the big boxes. The particulars of my deal might be interesting to the Charlotte area guys:

I'm having a local sawyer (Tommy Ballard out of Alexis, NC, 704.616.1477) quartersaw red oak into 1x6’s. I picked it up at lunch today, and it looks good with nice ray fleck. I’m taking the oak to Timber Ridge Lumber Company in Granite Falls to kiln dry and mold the flooring. Tommy is charging me 3X his usual saw rate to come up with the trees and quartersaw the lumber, so he’s at $540/1000 bd ft (yes, it’s a good price). Timber Ridge is charging $200/1000 to kiln dry, and $350/1000 to mold the flooring (their price is for just running the lumber and then I’ll clean it up and remove the knots, etc.). So, I come out at $1090/1000. That 6” stuff should make 5” flooring, so there’s 20%, and I’ll take a wild guess at 20% waste. My rough guess at cost/square foot comes to $1.60.

So yeah, there’s no way that you’re going to get 5” quartersawn oak flooring for $2 per square foot. Of course, my numbers don’t count the hassle of moving the stuff around and waiting on the whole process. If you want something special, then paying a local guy makes sense to me. If you want really cheap flooring, then buy the lumber liquidator stuff.

I talked with Kyle about running the stuff late last year, but I think I hit him when he was busy with his house and we never got it worked out. The benefit of using Kyle is that he has his own kiln and knows a local guy (as I recall) to mold the flooring. It may be less hauling to use him. Of course, I’ve been very happy with Tommy Ballard, and recommend him wholeheartedly. I feel like he did me right, and at $180/1000 for normal sawing, he’s hard to beat.

As a side note, I used Ellis Lumber over in Shelby to kiln dry some oak for trim boards for the house. They will work with individuals to dry (and that’s pretty hard to find). When I talked to them earlier this week, they told me that they don’t really run flooring anymore, but they’d be happy to dry it.

Good luck,

Adam

[Kyle]

" Tommy is charging me 3X his usual saw rate to come up with the trees and quartersaw the lumber, so he’s at $540/1000 bd ft (yes, it’s a good price).

I feel like he did me right, and at $180/1000 for normal sawing, he’s hard to beat."


in fact he is impossible to beat at that price..That comes out to about $5.00/hour for sawing..

I think I'll hire him to saw for me

[huckster]

Thanks to everyone who responded with help and information. It seems the consensus is "Go for it!". I'm not sure which route I'm going to go because I got to get the wife to agree on the wood species. After the decision comes the work, huh?

I checked out the url for the planer molder. It looks pretty sweet.
I don't have the machinery to do it all myself. Automation here would seem to be pretty darn friendly. I would like to (if I can) see it go from begining to end though. Its kinda hard to believe from the picture on the link (http://www.woodmastertools.com/s/planers.cfm) that it does planing and molding.

It would seem more economical to use wide plank as less processing is required. However on the lumber liquidator site the wide plank costs more.
I guess with wide plank flooring it is more difficult to get consistantly select pieces due to the larger sizes. Maybe wide plank probably doesen't sell as fast and is more costly to inventory for a big distributor/dealer.

Then one would have to install wide plank with pins or screws etc. to keep it flat on the sub-floor. I'm considering putting hardwood flooring over concrtete. Not all of it would be over concete only approx 1/5th. Anyone ever sealed the bottom side of hardwood floor to protect it? I wouldn't finish the bottom but just put a coat of polyurathane to keep it from picking up moisture too quickly. I figure that if the bottom side were done first it would help keep moisture from the slab from getting into the hardwood.
It would definitely add a small headache to the installation phase. I don't want take any chances though with installing over concrete.


Cheers,
~Huck

[jeff...]

Originally Posted by Kyle

" Tommy is charging me 3X his usual saw rate to come up with the trees and quartersaw the lumber, so he’s at $540/1000 bd ft (yes, it’s a good price).

I feel like he did me right, and at $180/1000 for normal sawing, he’s hard to beat."


in fact he is impossible to beat at that price..That comes out to about $5.00/hour for sawing..

I think I'll hire him to saw for me

Wow your right Kyle, I agree Tommy is impossible to beat.

[scsmith42]

and .20 bd ft for kiln drying is also impossible to beat. The utility costs alone for my kiln costs are more than that...