Finished (sort of)

The guiding design principle all the way has been to create a building that appears to have its roots firmly in the 1900s.  Given that, there was no way a high gloss, super smooth plastic looking floor was going to be for us.  Besides, we've laid real floor boards not laminate or vinyl. 

 

When it comes to timber floors there seems to be two broad approaches to finishing.  Either you go for a finish that sits on the timber, a polyurethane for example, or something that soaks into the timber, like a tung oil.  Both approaches have their ups and downs.   We went with a tung oil as we liked that it results in a satin finish which is easily repaired and doesn't stick the boards together (called edge bonding).  There are also tung oil brands around that have far less nasty chemicals in them than most of the polyurethanes.

So, our couple of days finishing went like this:

1. Sand with 60 grit paper.
2. Followed by 80 grit.
3. Hand rub on a coat of tung oil.
4. Hand rub the tung oil off after 15 minutes.
5. Leave for a day, then repeat steps 3 and 4.
6. Do all this with lots of ventilation and don't walk on it for another day.

If it still looks good in 12 months I'll let you know the brand of oil we used.  In the meantime - we're really happy with it.

PS-the light project turned out pretty well too.

Beating the enemy - dust

The Rolls Royce of sanders

I had long concluded that when it came to sanding there was always going to be dust on the hanky when I blew my nose at the end of the day - even with the brilliant Dust-Be-Gone dust mask.

But all that changed on the weekend when I sanded the hardwood flooring in one of the upstairs' bedrooms with my Festool RS100CQ sander connected to the Festool CT26E dust extractor (which is a euphemism for "vacuum cleaner").

After a day of sanding, the hanky was clean - not a speck.  Now that's impressive.

You may ask: why sand an entire floor with a 1/3 sheet sander?  Well, two reasons:

1. We don't want every imperfection eradicated, if that were the case we'd use laminate flooring over a chipboard floor. No, we want a floor that has some character but no splinters.
2. For the cost of hiring a floor sander I purchased the the RS100CQ second hand. And as sanders go - it is the Rolls Royce.

Staple diet

To secret nail a floor you need a nail gun specifically designed for that type of work.  In fact, it’s not a nail gun at all, but an air powered stapler (that must be why they call it a nail gun?) that fires a 45mm staple into hardwood at a 45 degree angle.  You hook the device up to a compressor and whack a white button on the top of the tool with a rubber mallet – pulling the boards together and firing off the staple at 100psi.  In fact, these tools are so good there's little need to clamp the boards, the sheer impact of the staple closes most gaps.



Floor nailer in action



So, the big question – whether to buy, hire or borrow a nail gun that does one thing and one thing only.  In case you’re wondering, no, they will not fire any other type of nail at any other angle – they just “do” staples at 45 degrees.

 

It would seem that the tool of choice is a Paslode – at around $600 – a big hit for one floor.  Option two was to hire, at around $290 for a week – but what if I didn’t get it done in one week?  Further, I’d have to hire it in Canberra as the local hire shop doesn’t have any on their books.

The third option was to buy a cheap one, which appear on EBay and the like for under $200.  I emailed a couple of EBay vendors asking about warranty and the like but had no reply.  So that cruelled that option for me.

Then I came across a forth alternative – buy a fully reconditioned unit from MS Tools for under $300.  With a 12 month, trade use warranty, Sydney support and friendly, responsive service I figured I had little to loose and went ahead.

So, how did it perform….well I’m glad you asked.  I fired around 2,000 45mm staples into hardwood flooring over 6 days.  During that time there were two hiccoughs.  The first was when I missed the tool with the mallet and hit my shin, dropped the hammer and nearly fell through the floor (2 weeks later I still have the bruise).  The second was when the nailer fired two staples instead of one.  This was easily rectified by tightening a couple of bolts around the frog – no drama, just routine maintenance.

So, with 20 square metres to go I’m glad I purchased the MS Tools nail gun.  I’m not sure what I’ll do with it when I’m finished – perhaps sell it and recoup some of the money (let me know if you’re interested J)

Floored

A week on site meant progress - and more than double the progress with both Nette and I doing 8 to 5 every day.  The goal for the week was to lay 80 square metres of floor boards upstairs.  We didn't quite make the target, but we did get 60 metres laid in addition to planting and fencing 50 walnut trees that Nette had grown from seed.

Nette measuring up

The tongue and groove flooring from North Eden Timber was excellent.  The boards, random length mixed blondes, were outstanding quality with only 3 or 4 needing a couple of inches removed due to minor flaws, like a split tongue.

The nail gun - which is actually an air powered stapler - performed without a hitch.  I'll write a report on it later. 

During the week Nette must have done a million miles, measuring what was needed, then sifting through the pile downstairs to find the closest board, then carrying it outside to the drop saw, cutting it to length before bringing it back up stairs for me to glue and staple down.   I got off easy really - but what a team.

We'll head back in a couple of weeks to finish the job and plant some more trees.