*
It sounds like a great undertaking and worth it if you plan to stay with the floor for a long time. Because it’s a heck of a lot of work getting wood from the forest to the floor. A little depends on how much you want to cover. Flooring allows you to use alot of the tree. Obviously, pick the straightest trees you can. Get a Wood mizer Portable mill as close to the log pile as you can. (A fellow will drive in and operate the mill for about $50 an hour up here in B.C.)
We harvest windfall Garry Oak (a local brown oak)and find that anything bigger than 16 inches around needs mechanical lifting, with a Hiab or something.
Be diligent about quarter sawing the wood. You want edge grain material. Maple is notorious for seasonal movement and edge grain will give you a fighting chance at tolerable stability.
Depending on the diameter of the trees, you’ll probably go for 3-5 inch wide flooring, so rough cut a good inch wider and 5/4 as Mad Dog said, to get 3/4 inch flooring.
It will take at least 2 or 3 years to air dry the stuff, depending on where you are (where are you?) So you need to kiln dry it. If you are really keen you can build a pretty low tech but effective solar kiln, info somewhere in ads in the back of FW. It should be less than 10% moisture before you mill it. Better yet stack where you are going to install it for a month or two.
So now you have a pile of 1 1/8th by 4 inch boards, six to 16 feet long.Unless you are well equiped, get a pro to take it from here. You need to joint an edge and a face, and plane it all square. And then you have to shape the tongue and groove. Yeah, get a pro to mill it. I would drive or ship it along way to get it done right. Because the boards all have to be exactly the same shape, perhaps a couple of different widths.
Its a big job and would make a good article, if not a book.
Replies
*
It sounds like a great undertaking and worth it if you plan to stay with the floor for a long time. Because it's a heck of a lot of work getting wood from the forest to the floor. A little depends on how much you want to cover. Flooring allows you to use alot of the tree. Obviously, pick the straightest trees you can. Get a Wood mizer Portable mill as close to the log pile as you can. (A fellow will drive in and operate the mill for about $50 an hour up here in B.C.)
We harvest windfall Garry Oak (a local brown oak)and find that anything bigger than 16 inches around needs mechanical lifting, with a Hiab or something.
Be diligent about quarter sawing the wood. You want edge grain material. Maple is notorious for seasonal movement and edge grain will give you a fighting chance at tolerable stability.
Depending on the diameter of the trees, you'll probably go for 3-5 inch wide flooring, so rough cut a good inch wider and 5/4 as Mad Dog said, to get 3/4 inch flooring.
It will take at least 2 or 3 years to air dry the stuff, depending on where you are (where are you?) So you need to kiln dry it. If you are really keen you can build a pretty low tech but effective solar kiln, info somewhere in ads in the back of FW. It should be less than 10% moisture before you mill it. Better yet stack where you are going to install it for a month or two.
So now you have a pile of 1 1/8th by 4 inch boards, six to 16 feet long.Unless you are well equiped, get a pro to take it from here. You need to joint an edge and a face, and plane it all square. And then you have to shape the tongue and groove. Yeah, get a pro to mill it. I would drive or ship it along way to get it done right. Because the boards all have to be exactly the same shape, perhaps a couple of different widths.
Its a big job and would make a good article, if not a book.
*
Agree with most of the advice presented, just have one nit to pick. :-)
Hardwood lumber sawn 1 1/8" thick is 4/4 NOT 5/4. Almost all hardwood producers aim for cutting about 1/8" heavy - of course some of the WoodMizer operators do it differently.
5/4 should be a minimum of 1 1/4" thick and customarily is about 1 3/8" thick - quite a waste for planing down for flooring.
At any rate, I agree that the lumber should be sawn about 1 1/8" thick when green.
David Vaughn
*Sorry David, It's been about 10 years since I've had my own timber sawn, I do remember however that it was sawn to 1-1/8" thickness when green. Thanks for pointing this out. MDM.
*Kathy, this is all excellent information. I have done this with oak. One thing I would recommend as an absolute is keep the boards on the thinner side. Wide boards look fantastic, but have much greater shrinkage potential, even if kiln dried properly. You'll get some pretty good sized (possibly as bad as 1/4" on 9" wide boards) gaps after it dries out.Your best bet is to cut your trees as Mad Dog Maglin suggested: when the sap is not flowing in the wintertime. Then the sawmill can take their time to prepare the boards for you so that you can install the floors the following late fall-early spring. Do not install the floors in a humid season, say late June-early september if you're in a northerly climate like mine.Also, the advice given by Geoff about having a pro tongue and groove your boards is important. It is not an easy job to get uniformity here, and it is critical to get a tongue and groove that is not too tight, not too loose, and of uniform height off the subfloor. This really should be done in a shop with a shaper. I've done it on a router table but there's more room for error that way.Lastly, get a pro to finish the floor. Many reasons for this, could go on and on.MD
*The sap is already starting to rise no matter where you live in north America. This early spring will raise havoc with the plants.Go thee this site to read about saw milling and drying:http://www.woodweb.com/~industry/saw-dry/By looking at past posts you will learn a lot. This might turn into a labor of love. Think really hard before you go and cut down a large tree thinking that you will get enough to make flooring. Contact your state forestry office and talk with one of their foresters. They will give you objective advice since they will not benefit from any work that will be done. You might find that the trees are too small or to low grade to make enough flooring. Most of the time, trees are worth more growing in the woods than being made into lumber. If you HAVE to cut the trees down to clear for a road or house pad, that is a different case. I am a commercial arborist and I have scavenged a lot of logs off of jobs that are now either drying in my back yard or stickered in my living room waiting for next winter to be turned into trim.Tom the Tree Guy
*I couldn't agree more. It depends on your woodlot. As Tom suggests, think hard about cutting down big maples. You need a good diameter, a fair amount of trunk height before the first main branches, and straight without a lot of obvious defects-maples are well known to have rotten sections. Don't count on using the branches at all.A forester can definitely be a good investment-could point out trees that are dying that you could use, or which ones would be best to keep/remove, and a lot of experienced tips.Once you cut the tree down, it's hard to replace!
*You might try getting in touch with your state ag dept.. Sometimes they will help you in selecting how & when to harvest your treetrees. Somete universitys are very helpful too..Also they will help in how to manage your timber so your decedescendentsl have a healthy & prosperious timber.. L. Siders
*
We plan to harvest some maple off of our own property to use for flooring in our new home. I have no idea who or where to go to find the proper procedure to do this, such as when is the right time of year for cutting and what specifications the wood should be milled to. Does anyone have any ideas? Kathy Rohlfing
*Hi Kathy, This is an interesting subject. I used to live in Ohio close to an Amish community. Out there are many Amish owned sawmills, some with kiln drying capabilities. I've always heard that it is best to cut maple when the sap is down (Late fall Early winter). When I used to take logs to the mill I would ask to have it cut to a 5/4 thickness and I would pay to have them kiln dry it. You could dry it by stickering it; however, it will crack and check more than if it was kiln dried. The 5/4 thickness (about1-1/8" allows enough wood to finish plane to final dimensions. Your best bet would be to find a sawmill, tell them what you want to use the lumber for, and ask them what they suggest. I would probably say that unless you are willing to do the harvesting, hauling, and drying yourself, you'd probably be as well off to purchase your boards from a hardwood supplier. Good luck with your project and be sure to let us know how it turns out.