DIYbanter - View Single Post - Floorboards

Tanner-'op

wrote:
On Sat, 6 Sep 2008 20:03:17 +0100, "Tanner-'op"
wrote:

wrote:
On Sat, 6 Sep 2008 18:40:34 +0100, "George \(dicegeorge\)"
wrote:

Is there any reason why my old floorboards are nailed, other than
that it's quicker?

Historically boards were nailed with flooring brads through the
tongues( or was it the grooves) to hide the nails .

Snipped,

The idea of a flooring brad is to nail down through the face of the
floorboard - if you try using these through the tongues, you won't
have a tongue to fix the next board to.

If you are 'secret' nailing floor boards, you generally bang an oval
or lost head nail 'on the skew' through the side of the board above
the root of the tongue and then belt them below the surface using a
nail punch (and hammer).

And long. laborious and f****ng arm aching job when using the method
to fix T,G and Veed boards to ceilings.

Tanner-'op

I recently lifted the T+G boards in my Victorian flat and it was clear
this was the first time they had been lifted .They were secret nailed
using long cut brads through the tongues but the nails went in at such
an angle that they came out under the main part of the board so
avoiding splitting the tongue . Obviously you would never put the nail
clean through the tongue as firstly you would split the tongue but it
would not secure the board to the joists .

Now that is unusual - and interesting.

I have spent all my working life on building maintenance (retired from it
now) and never came across cut nails used as secret nailing in floorboards
(lots of other things mind) - what were the thickness of the things?

Tanner-'op