Laying oak floor - secret nailing
 

Hi all,

I fitted our oak living room floor today. Very pleased with the result
(not as smooth as laminate, but hey, you can't have everything ;-)

I have one outstanding question. The boards were end-matched T&G, laid
onto battens fixed to the subfloor. I hired a 45degree secret nailer for
the job. This worked very well, and did a great job of getting the nails in.

For the first two rows of boards, there wasn't enough clearance to the
wall to allow me to use the nailer, so I hand nailed at 45 degrees, then
punched in.

I then proceeded to lay all the middle rows with no problems. But when I
came to doing the last two rows, I found myself in an interesting
situation. There wasn't enough room to use the nailer, and there wasn't
a great deal of room to hand nail either. I got a few nails in, but made
use of a few blobs of nonails as well.

For the last row, there really wasn't enough room to do any nailing. So
it was either face nail, face screw or glue. I glued. I thought about
using face screws on the edge of the board, to be covered by skirting,
but the gap required for fitting the last row meant that the skirting
would need to be 25mm deep to hide any nails/screws used.

My question is this - is there a recommended way of handling the last
one/two rows of a T&G floor? How did you do it?


TIA

--
Grunff

Grunff wrote in :

Hi all,

I fitted our oak living room floor today. Very pleased with the result
(not as smooth as laminate, but hey, you can't have everything ;-)

I have one outstanding question. The boards were end-matched T&G, laid
onto battens fixed to the subfloor. I hired a 45degree secret nailer
for the job. This worked very well, and did a great job of getting the

My question is this - is there a recommended way of handling the last
one/two rows of a T&G floor? How did you do it?

Screw and glue, hide with plug/grommet

"gna03633" wrote in message
06...
Grunff wrote in :

Hi all,

I fitted our oak living room floor today. Very pleased with the result
(not as smooth as laminate, but hey, you can't have everything ;-)


You could if you gave it a quick sand over with a floor sander. Just to
level out the unevenness. Out of interest was it pre-cut boards and all you
did was varnish?

L Reid wrote:

You could if you gave it a quick sand over with a floor sander.

Already sanded, and it is pretty smooth really, I was just referring to
previous comments I made on laminate.


Out of interest was it pre-cut boards and all you
did was varnish?

It was all pre-cut, and end matched (T&G on all 4 sides). I haen't
applied a finish yet, but I will be oiling, not varnishing.


--
Grunff

"Grunff" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

I fitted our oak living room floor today. Very pleased with the result
(not as smooth as laminate, but hey, you can't have everything ;-)

I have one outstanding question. The boards were end-matched T&G, laid
onto battens fixed to the subfloor. I hired a 45degree secret nailer for
the job. This worked very well, and did a great job of getting the nails
in.

For the first two rows of boards, there wasn't enough clearance to the
wall to allow me to use the nailer, so I hand nailed at 45 degrees, then
punched in.

I then proceeded to lay all the middle rows with no problems. But when I
came to doing the last two rows, I found myself in an interesting
situation. There wasn't enough room to use the nailer, and there wasn't
a great deal of room to hand nail either. I got a few nails in, but made
use of a few blobs of nonails as well.

For the last row, there really wasn't enough room to do any nailing. So
it was either face nail, face screw or glue. I glued. I thought about
using face screws on the edge of the board, to be covered by skirting,
but the gap required for fitting the last row meant that the skirting
would need to be 25mm deep to hide any nails/screws used.

My question is this - is there a recommended way of handling the last
one/two rows of a T&G floor? How did you do it?



I face screwed the boards that couldn't be nailed due to clearance, along
with the alcoves that would serve as access hatches should emergency access
ever be required.

Screws were sunk using one of those trend "snappy" drill/countersinks, and
then I plugged the holes using plugs made from spare boards using the
matching cutter (being careful to match the plug colour and grain
direction). Shaved off the tops carefully with a SHARP chisel, then sanded
the floor.

They're barely noticeable (ie you'd really have to look for them).

--
Richard Sampson

mail me at
richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk