Making the Flooring - August 2013

We decided to make our own hardwood flooring from the oak logs that we milled from the property.  We had acquired all the tools needed, and liked the idea of using the logs from out property as a permanent part of our home.  This was quite a process, but the end result came out amazing!

We had to move the lumber from the property to our home, where we would be working on this project.  The first step was that all the boards had to be cut to fit into the trailer, which would be our kiln.

The first cuts of the flooring

Next, the wood needed to be dried.  This can be done naturally, by allowing the wood to dry outdoors passively.  Or the wood can be kiln dried at elevated temperatures.  Our wood had already been drying outdoors for almost a year before we started this process.  We wanted to make sure that the wood was completely dried for best results, so we decided to kiln dry the wood.  Although this can be done professionally, we decided to make our own kiln by using an enclosed trailer, electric heater, humidifier, and lots of fans to keep the air moving.  We sealed up the trailer, and with the natural heat of the sun, and some heat from the heater, the trailer was kept at elevated temperatures for 4 weeks.  We had to empty a 5-gallon bucket of water daily, which was the moisture being removed from the wood.  Over 80 gallons of water was removed from the wood!  When it was done, we used a moisture meter to measure the wood, and it had dropped down from 16% moisture, to below 5% moisture!  Perfect!  We were really happy with the results!   

The Trailer Kiln with fans set-up.

The kiln:  Electric heater, dehumidifier, fans, and a temperature/humidity gauge (not shown).

Once the wood was dried, the process for making the flooring could begin.  This involved many steps and was a long process.  The first step was to face joint the boards, which flattens the face of the boards.  Then the boards needed to be edge jointed, which straightens and squares the edge of the board.     

Boards after being joined

The piles of wood over-taking our small garage, amongst all the woodworking tools!  

Short video clip - Edge jointing the boards

Face jointing the boards

The next step is to plane the boards (not pictured).  The planer is used to make a board that's been jointed flat equal thickness from end to end.  This took a few passes through the planer of each board to get the entire board a consistent thickness.  Just to make this process even more exciting, the planer literally blew up half way through the job!  Steve had to find and purchase a new planer, to be able to finish!  Luckily he found a good deal, and an upgraded planer!  Next, a band saw was used to rip the boards to width.  We choose to use three widths for two reasons; to be as efficient as possible with our wood, and we also like the look of having different width flooring.  The last steps involved the shaper.  Each board had to go through the shaper five times: Once for the tongue, then for the groove, then for both the tongue and groove on the ends of the board.  And finally for the relief cuts on the bottom of the boards.      

Dad shaping the groove in the flooring

Finally, the finished product, resting comfortable in our house!  All of the finished product is not pictured here, but we totaled about 1200 square feet of flooring for the new house!  The darker wood on the top is the black walnut, which will be used for the border, and rest of the wood is red oak.

The finished product:  1200 square feet of oak and walnut flooring, resting happily in our house until ready for use!