Kyle Boatright wrote:

"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote in message
m...

"Kyle Boatright" wrote in message
The problem is that the new wood doesn't match the existing wood. The
color is fine, but the new wood has far more variation in grain than what
it was supposed to match..

What to do?

Live with it. There is no practical solution. Trees grow in the woods
and they have grain characteristics according to the conditions of the
particular area. Water, drought, heat, other growth nearby all affect the
final result. Chances are the trees from the original floor were 100
years older and maybe had a tighter grain than anything available today.

Only way to assure grain matching is to select each board individually
before the flooring guy ever cuts it. You may have to view a thousand
trees to come close. IMO, your expectations are too high. One of my
hobbies is woodworking. I can show you boards that are six feet long and
the grain variation is so different at each end you wonder if it is even
the same species.

Culling wood to find only those that come close to the original could
easily drive the cost up two or three times. I often look through a
dozen boards to find two close enough for a small project. to do a floor
would be a nightmare.

I probably should have been more clear. The difference isn't a tree to tree
difference, it appears that the new material isn't the same "grade" as the
existing. My existing floors are at least one grade "better" than what the
guy has installed. Given that I'm not in the wood floor business, I'd guess
the existing floor is either "Clear" or "Select" grade, and what he's
installed is at least one step down the scale.

KB

That would mean that the old floor has no knots, and the new area
has knots. It has nothing to do with the grain. The grain of all
new wood is different than grain from wood milled even 20 years
ago. Reclamation methods have made use of even the smallest part of
the trees, and the harvesting of younger and younger trees plus fast
growth techniques have changed the entire character of the lumber
you buy today.

If you wanted matched grain, as a previous poster said, you will
likely have to pay 3-5 times as much for the materials. Add labor
if the stock must be sampled for grain matching.

--
Robert Allison
Rimshot, Inc.
Georgetown, TX