I want to say welcome to Scott Avery, he will add a new side to the Contractor Blog.
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I want to say welcome to Scott Avery, he will add a new side to the Contractor Blog.
I was asked a few things about my repair on the glue down job so ... hope this will help:
Q: If one can install above a slab with 3/4 t&g, why did those four boards come loose?
A: One can install 3/4 T&G on a slab and it has been going on for many years. In fact, Daniel Boone has been doing this for 38 years in Florida, and he is the one that trained me how to make it all work. The downside is I must have let the trowel lay down too much or just not put enough in those spots. They did not come loose; they just had a void and the tin sound when thumped.
Q: What adhesive did not adhere?
A: The adhesive did not fail; I did not spread the adhesive correct. I use the Stauf with no trouble. It is easy to work with and fantastic to clean up.
Q: Did you take every hickory board from the bundle at the distribution and "eye" it for straightness?
A: No, we did not. We did hand-pick the flooring during the install and kept out the long boards for the wall lines. I added extra waste to the job so we could select the boards we wanted. My wood flooring supplier did allow me to re-pack any boards we did not want in the cardboard box. They re-sold the full boxes and the rest was waste. I add 5% most of the time, but we had 10% on this job to hand select. We have a wonderful working relationship with the wood flooring supplier.
Q: The diameter of the dowel rod you made from hickory-the picture showed about a 1/8 drill bit. Do you make toothpicks?
A: I made them from hickory. I took the band saw and cut thin strips, put it in my cordless drill and spun it in a 100 grit paper till it was round and thin. It was simple and fast and worked great. About 1/8 is about right, spun to size on the job with the cordless drill so it would fit the hole tight.
Q: If you were really concerned about the straightness of the product, hickory would be close to the bottom of the list.
A: The flooring made today is made very well and factory-finished flooring has an edge because it gets a better QC inspection. They want the best flooring for the factory-finish, more DIY folks install factory-finish flooring via box stores and retail shops. Better flooring means less negative comments or complaints.
Q: What finish did you place atop your dowel to match the prefinish sheen?
A: None, the hole I drilled was in the bevel of the side match, so it is very hard to see the rod in the side match. It was not a big hole; the dowel rod filled the hole and the small amount of filler did the rest.
Hope this helps.
One more question I was asked: Why do I call it factory-finish, not prefinish? The term prefinish can be used for a job where the contractor did the finish in the shop—like a hand-scraped, then wipe-on sealer & wax that was not factory-done finish. So, prefinished can apply to many jobs but to me, factory means that it was made and finished in a factory. The NWFA tries to use "factory-finished" in their tech publications now instead of "prefinished." Does that make sense?
Thanks again for reading.