On 27 Jul 2004 00:19:39 -0700, (David Ware) wrote:

I'm in need of advice. I'm just about ready to lay a solid oak T&G
floor in our lounge, the boards are 200mm wide (and 20mm deep) and
I've read that face nailing is recommended for boards this wide and
I'm not too sure how this would look.

I have various options, visible nail heads, filled nail heads or
plugged nail heads. I think the latter two would ultimately be
noticable and my eye would be drawn to any inperfections whenever I
looked, so I'm leaning towards visible nails. This would be in keeping
with the rest of the house, the original exposed pine boards in other
rooms obviously has them. But I've never seen an example of a new T&G
oak floor with visible nail heads. Can anyone help me here, has anyone
done this, do you have pictures? And secondly, if I'm to do this,
which nails? I don't fancy modern floor nails, does anyone know of
somewhere that makes reproduction old nails?

If I face nail these boards am I not increasing the chances of them
splitting as I'll be fixing them in multiple places across their width
unlike secret nailing? Is there a way to try to prevent this?

Finally, has anyone laid boards this wide and not face nailed them?
What was the result, was there any cupping? For reference, my floor is
a suspended floor over a ventilated void. The joists are insulated,
then 18mm ply, then building paper then the boards themselves.

Thanks for any help you can give,
David.

I have oak boards approx. 150mm wide, 22mm thick and secret nailed.
They have two grooves approx. 6mm sq. machined on the underside, said
to reduce/prevent cupping, and they have - the floors have remained
stable. There is a tiny amount of seasonal movement across the
widths of some boards - maybe a mm or so. They were laid in the
summer and on some, what is normally a 0-1mm gap opens to 1-2mm in the
winter as the boards shrink slightly. I'm not sure that I would have
face nailed them for fear of splitting as you say.

Remember that with most types of oak that you are going to get grain
imperfections and live knots, which is part of the appeal anyway.
If you are looking for "perfection", oak is not a material to use.

For nails, you might try Architectural Ironmongery
http://www.arciron.com/
in Ross on Wye. They have rose head cut nails.

One thing to bear in mind is that you may get a certain amount of
black staining around the nails. This is caused by the tannin in the
oak, plus moisture reacting with the iron.

I wonder whether another option for you might be to lay some 18mm ply
and then float the floor with an underlay on that? It may be worth
researching.






..andy

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