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Blog: Franklin border part 7 Rubio Monocoat
by Everett 5/25/2020
The day has finally come, it's time to apply the Rubio Monocoat. This stuff is similar to staining but a little more difficult. You have to apply it in smaller sections, wait for it to react with the wood for 3-5 minutes, buff it with a red pad to knock the grain down from the water popping, then buff over it with the white pad, and finally a couple times with terry cloth towels-- all within 15 minutes. So it’s kind...
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Blog: Franklin border part 6 colors, colors, and more colors
by Everett 5/19/2020
Now for one of the more unpredictable processes we encounter on any given job- coming up with a color. We only get one shot at this, so it has to be perfect. The client wanted something similar to what they had, but we always do samples to make absolutely sure. Rather than do the samples on their actual floor, which would require additional sanding to remove the samples once the decision is made, we built a panel...
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Blog: Franklin border part 5 random thoughts on sanding
by Everett 5/9/2020
Unlike a typical ¾” thick floor, we can’t just start grinding away on a floor like this. When you have different species of wood with varying densities such as oak or maple vs walnut or mahogany, the softer woods sand much easier and therefore tend to “dish out”. Steel discs on the Multidisc or PowerDrive prevent the sandpaper from flexing down into the softer species, ensuring that the floor will maintain a perfectly flat...
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Blog: Franklin border part 4 existing border repair
by Everett 4/25/2020
The carpentry work on this job didn’t end with the new floor and border installation, there was some previous moisture damage on the border where it ran around the bay window that needed to be repaired. One of the bigger issues with repairs on hardwood floors is that the damage to the subfloor is more widespread than the damage seen at the surface. You remove all the rotted wood on the surface and realize that you need...
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Blog: Our quest for the swirl free stain job
by Everett 4/18/2020
When I look back on my 20 plus year career in wood flooring, there are countless instances of things we did that were outright unthinkable these days but went unnoticed for years. Whether it’s the quality of the sand job, staining, finishing, etc., it’s a wonder to me that we thought we were doing such high end work considering how far we’ve come. I look at it as a long line of small advancements, this post will cover...
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Blog: Franklin border part 3 on-site installation
by Everett 4/16/2020
These days the easiest and most reliable way to install a floor with a border is to build the field first with the boards running past the border line, then cut nice straight lines with a track saw to build the border off of. If you set the border first and build the field afterwards, not only will you have to angle match every single board, but you’ll have to cut every single row to the perfect length. It can certainly...
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Blog: Franklin border part 2 cutting the pieces
by Everett 4/11/2020
Ok so now all the design elements have been chosen, how on earth are we going to pull it off? Whenever we do a project like this, we like to spend some time making jigs with stops so that every piece we cut for each part of the border is identical. I decided to make a half sled for the table saw, and just to make it more future ready, this time I fabricated a jig made from angle iron that was fully adjustable in both angle...
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Blog: Franklin border part 1
by Everett 4/5/2020
We were contacted around fall of 2019 to look at a house built in 1902 in Franklin Indiana. The original floor was a 5/16” face nailed quartersawn white oak floor like so many others here in central Indiana, but unlike most it had a border in the entry hall. The client wanted the floors sanded and some repairs done here and there due to previous roof leaks, but right away Gabe noticed that the floors in the parlor, library...
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How to sand your own floors
by Everett 4/28/2018
Sanding your own hardwood floors can save you a lot of money, most of the tools needed to do this yourself can be rented inexpensively. This article will hopefully serve to be a useful guide to help you avoid disaster.
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Wood and moisture
by Everett 2/5/2018
Understanding the relationship between wood and moisture is a crucial aspect of having wood flooring installed in your home. Not only can extremes in moisture be disastrous, even mild fluctuations can cause a floor to perform less than ideally. Simply put, one of the main purposes of wood in a tree is to transfer water from the roots to the leaves, which it does through capillary action. In other words, wood is...
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