How to install boards to finish ceiling?
i have not seen one of those since my grandfather passed away.
andriywww1990
in General Discussion 3 years and 1 month ago
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32 replies
Jimmy | 3 years and 1 month ago
Architect is going for sauna/spa vibes with this one. Calls for 1″x6″ boards to run along the ceiling. Picture attached for reference.
Here’s the homedepot link to the board
How would you guys achieve this look? [76D89A2405594AEF953C48436CB68D43](//muut.com/u/brownstoner/s1/:brownstoner:stPM:76d89a2405594aef953c48436cb68d43.jpg.jpg)
GreenThinker | 3 years and 1 month ago
Same way it’s installed on a floor, nail into the tongue, groove covers it up, where the board starts and finishes, you nail into the face of the board in the corner, and it’s covered up by either trim or the board that goes on the wall. Normally people use furring strips spaced every foot or so, or you could just plywood the whole ceiling and then attach the boards.
andriywww1990 | 3 years and 1 month ago
do the grid like green mentions and use long deck screws to attach it to the ceiling joists. if the ceiling is uneven, run a line across it in say 3 or more places depending on the size of the room to find your low spots. mark them and mark the high spots. attach the pieces of the grid at the low spots first (low meaning hanging down toward the floor) and then shim the higher spots and attach so the grid is level. sort of like anything else we put on a floor, work the high spot first (in this case low) and build to it.
here is the thing on this, you will not be nailing this in like you do flooring (very tight). it is dry right now. the wood might be dry when it goes in and you will not have either twist shank nails or cleats holding it (and even if you did, the pine might move and pull off the nails or cleats), so i would not pound the wood in against one another, like you might do on an oak floor. leave a little bit of wiggle along the sides of each board (not a lot, not a full 1/16″, just a little wiggle for expansion) and leave 1/8″ around the perimet er on a smaller room and 3/16″ on a larger room. if you do not leave space for expansion, this wood could swell in the summer months and begin to pull and loosen the wire brads – even 16 gauge. you can also use pl400 or premium on very third or fourth board. sometimes when i do stuff like this, i shoot the nails in pairs at opposing angles away from each other and together they offer more hold. and do not count on them having a/c on all the time. something could happen, a leak from above or the a/c is down for some reason, the house is empty, and there is a problem.
i hope this is going on over a finished ceiling because this stuff will burn fast if there is a fire and it offers no protection.
Jimmy | 3 years and 1 month ago
thank you both for the help, I assure you guys that this is very helpful. The ceiling has just been drywalled so the boards are supposed to cover the drywall
stevecym | 3 years and 1 month ago
And i should not have used the term grid. Grid implies fur in both directions. You need them in one direction, across the joists. Lay your tg across those.
stevecym | 3 years and 1 month ago
If that is real flat, you can skip the grid and put them right to the rock with pl 400 on every other board and use that double nail pattern by placing the nails 1/4″ apart and shooting them sort of in opposite directions. They cant pull out and if you mark your joists and hit one of them a couple times on every board you will be fine.
stevecym | 3 years and 1 month ago
The kind of nailing i am trying to describe is “toe nailing”.
nyc_sport | 3 years and 1 month ago
Mount furring strips to the ceiling, and blind nail in the tounge and grooves just like one would do installing hardwood flooring
stevecym | 3 years and 1 month ago
Nyc sport: why is the furring needed over a new flat cieling?
GreenThinker | 3 years and 1 month ago
For arguments sake, the drywall could be attached to metal studs instead of wood joists; therefore you’d want wood furring to attach the boards too. Furring also allows you to do what ever spacing you’d like between nails. The furring may also allow for a bit more expansion/shrinkage movement, lessening the chance of gaps or buckling with the boards.
stevecym | 3 years and 1 month ago
Hmmm, i’ve put this up just the way i said about twenty years ago the way i described, toe nailed with contruction adhesive on every other one and never had a complaint.
The problem a lot of newbies have when they deal with wood is not understanding the issues that expansion and contraction can cause. So they would still have to be hung the way i said in my earlier reply – not too tight, especially if this is going up in the winter because we know it will expand. Or perhaps a little tighter in the summer with smaller gaps around the edges because we know it will contract. I explained that in my reply above, how much play to leave. The other thing some one can do is take a mousture meter to the wood and see what its potential for movement is: it will expand more across the grain, less over the length. There is data out there explaining what different species of wood will do as moisture content changes. Pine happens to move a lot.
A lot of people hang crown and other trim to drywall now by applying some construction adhesive and toe nailing the wood. The toe nailing is very strong in wood and somewhat strong in drywall but is only really done to secure the wood until the adhesive dries. Unfortunately today, few people know what toe nailing is and fewer use it (i use it but had to look the name up).
To your point about the adhesive inhibiting expansion and contraction, i would not run the adhesive the length of the board buy would put a half dollar size blob of it, 3/8″ high, every 15 inches or so. This will still allow movement. Also, if there is any uneveness in the drywall, pressing on the thick pl400 adhesive more or less will force the glue to spread more or less as needed, taking up any gaps created.
One other thing. Construction adhesives are not glue. Some of them are harder and some softer. The pl200 and 400 appear softer than the premium when set. There is also panel adhesive but i am less familiar with it. These adhesives allow more movement than the glues or epoxies we use.
This can only be done on new or flat drywall. Not plaster. The furring goes on plaster. Plaster has issues and can be unpredictable.
Construction adhesive has changed a lot about how we do things in the past 40 years and most adhesives are stronger than the products we are joining. And don’t be afraid it will pull tha paper off the rock. This pine is light and we have had instances where it was very difficult to break that bond.
stevecym | 3 years and 1 month ago
I just checked. The construction adhesives i mention above are actually designed to allow wood to expand and contract.
In so far as allowing for expansion and contraction. It is not a game of chance. An experienced person doing this knows they must allow for it. The issues green mentions, buckling, those are the sorts of things that occur when inexperienced people do this sort of work. If done right by the right people there will be no issues.
andriywww1990 | 3 years and 1 month ago
anyone contemplating doing what i have described above must understand, on the drywall, unless they know they have wood joists up above and are running across the joists and mark those joists and get a 2.5″ 16 gauge finishing nail into each joist on each piece of wood, they MUST use that adhesive on every other piece of wood. toe nailing alone on drywall will not be enough as over time the finish nails will loosen and i am afraid continued expansion and contraction might not really stop or might pull at the nails and it 15 years it is a mess.
any homeowner planning to do this on their own in even a smaller room would be wise to consider getting a pneumatic nail gun. porter cable sometimes sells a 3 gun kit with a compressor. using a nail gun on something like this would make it move so much faster and once you have a nail gun in the house you will be willing to try other things.
steve and doors by are the same person
nyc_sport | 3 years and 1 month ago
The furring strips serve multiple purposes. Mostly, it provides a nailing surface, so the boards can be nailed with simple staples. Two, it allows you to chose which direction-if you are trying to use the joists the boards can only go one way, and it is inevitably going to be the wrong way. Three, you are going to split those tongues trying to put a two inch nail through them, and it is much easier and quicker to nail into a visible strip. Four, trying to nail both ends of a but joint into the same joist is a pain in the but. And, if and when you want to take it all down, whether for repair or change in decor, you will not take the drywall with it. Of course, if the ceiling is metal studs you have to go this route.
andriywww1990 | 3 years and 1 month ago
if someone is thinking ahead like NYC -Sport, then using the adhesive is out because it will make a mess when the wood is one day removed.
Sport, i suspect you mean narrow crown staples, not simply “staples”. at first glance i thought of an arrow t-50 but i am not certain one of those has to push to do this sort of thing.
the toe nailing will still hold the wood in drywall so long as the drywall is the heavy stuff (5/8″) and every other board is applied with adhesive. the nail gun has to be set so the nails are not pushing through the wood. narrow crown staples cannot be toed nailed the same way and yes, they will pull out of drywall sort of easy. they are nice to use on wood.
in so far as aligning the ends of the butt joint: anyone doing any sort of trim work would be wise to have some starter course shims around (i never go to any job without shims and every time i think i will be ok without them, i need them). And I mean real starter course shims. these are the shakes used for the starter course on the exterior of a house NOT the little packet s of shims they sell on the counter in the hardware store. Home Depot sold real starter course shims in big bundles in the lumber aisle but a year or so ago stopped carrying them. shims allow us to offset any unevenness in the substrate or even the product we are applying.
can anyone on here tell me the advantage REAL cedar starter course shims might serve over the plastic wrapped product sold in the hardware store and how that might help someone trying to align a butt joint in wood being applied to a less than perfect flat surface?
nyc_sport | 3 years and 1 month ago
I am not referring to any Arrow hobby staples. Most hardwood flooring is “nailed” with staples, not nails (or cleats). Using a proper coated staple the coating melts and effectively turns to glue when driven into the substrate with a pneumatic staple gun. And the staples are shot at an angle so they do not loosen when the wood expands (a flooring nailer will make that easier).
stevecym | 3 years and 1 month ago
I kind of figured out that it was not an arrow but most people would not follow that through without being told – they would guess. Even i. I have never laid a modern wood floor with staples. I think i know what you mean, my mother had one of those floors put in and the wood or whatever it is made of is like 1/2 thick. i am sure it was not put in with cleats. But still, that leaves me wondering what kind of staples. I mean i can look, but at this point you are not only teaching others about new technology but me as well. For the benefit of the reader, maybe elaborate. Someone on here might try to do this
Btw, true old style t&g flooring is still put in with cleats because the force of the hammer is needed to drive the boards together. They are real, heavy oak and the sometimes have little bows to them that a press of the finger or even a foot will not straighten out. Laid out on their own there would be gaps all over the place.
All these nuances, we learn them by doing.
nyc_sport | 3 years and 1 month ago
Obviously, a professional tool is much more money. But a simple DIYer flooring nailer
https://www.amazon.com/WEN-61741-18-Gauge-Pneumatic-Flooring/dp/B073X8SCJK/ref=sr_1_8?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9fLb4PnF9wIV6fvICh3uPwTdEAAYASAAEgIXe_D_BwE&hvadid=410022268071&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9067609&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=14190202323125661025&hvtargid=kwd-128910496&hydadcr=8462_11337791&keywords=pneumatic+flooring+nailer&qid=1651670957&sr=8-8
And coated flooring staples
https://www.homedepot.com/p/POWERNAIL-1-4-in-x-1-1-2-in-18-Gauge-Glue-Collated-Narrow-Crown-Staples-for-Woodwork-and-Flooring-5000-per-Box-PS18150/311949967
andriywww1990 | 3 years and 1 month ago
thank you for that. sport, no one has talked about these on here before. i myself only use a narrow crown stapler (in addition to the brad nailers) here in my shop and even that i rarely use as it is leftover from when i made cabinet boxes and i used to staple the backs. after you said what you did yesterday, i took a look at what is on the market and even began to read – there is a lot out there. Metabo is making staples now and for those who don’t know, metabo is the high end tool company that most of us have never heard of and we will never see in HD (i think they are german; like an Audi).
I have never used that kind of flooring stapler and in truth did not know there is such a beast. But my GUESS is that these are made for the thinner engineered flooring (that i know nothing about). Potential users should keep in mind if we take a tool from what it is intended for and use it someplace else, there are risks. in this case, the flooring staplers and nailers have a “nose” and lip on them that sits down over the tongue and against the side of the face of the wood. these devices are pretty much set for certain thicknesses of wood and if we move away from that thickness it will place the nail too high or low in the crotch between the tongue and the side of the face. i suspect the wood the OP is trying to use and the thickness of the floors that these staplers are designed for are comparable and this tool may be a good choice. but we have to be aware that there can be issues (how many tools have i bought or borrowed from other industries to try out someplace they are not designed for and they do not work? dozens of times). also, i suspect that there may now be “adjustable” nailers on the market to deal with issues such as these. i do not have time to look but it makes sense with all the different things out there – both material wise and tool wise.
i will say this. i have had to suffer with cheap air guns. even if i were a home owner, i would not buy a smaller name. i only buy Porter Cable and Bostich (bob marvin remembers when “Bostich” was called the “Boston Stitching Company”). the better brands are Senco and Metabo. Craftsman used to be made by Senco and guys i knew used to go buy the craftsman nailers even though we thought everything else about craftsman is poor (at least their power tools). and dewalt is fine for a homeowner. i use dewalt for guns i rarely use and they work fine – i am just afraid they will not take the abuse that someone like me would give them. this is what i would be afraid of with homeowners trying to do this with a cheap tool: they will have such a bad experience because really cheap tools can be very difficult to use that they will toss the tool in the trash and give up.
NYC Sport, there is a lot more to flush out here and i have to get to work. someone should find out if they make adjustable guns to accommodate varying thicknesses of wood. (we can also use a thin piece of wood to shim a nailer or stapler out, but cutting wood to that specific a thickness may be beyond someone who does not have a table saw handy).