Parquet Border
I used a 16 guage on my kitchen. In pairs. It does not look bad but perhaps to 234bcd’s point, a 15 guage would look better. I bet the nails they used were about 15. Maybe smaller. The ones in this 1928 house are small.
stevecym
in General Discussion 4 years and 8 months ago
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26 replies
stevecym | 4 years and 8 months ago
The product is made for commercial, high traffic retail. I get it at PC Hardwood Flooring. Its pricey – about a buck a gallon.
I thought about that color all day and I bet it was mohawk dark golden oak. I began keeping a book of colors and finishes used in ’14 just in case questions like this arise.
2345bcde | 4 years and 8 months ago
If you want your floor to have the correct tone ( a sort of honey color ) you absolutely need to use a oil based poly. A water based poly will not look right because it has no color at all. Don’t shoot nails into the face it will not look like an old floor you will have to face nail it. If you want it to look old you have to do it they way it used to be done.
hkapstein | 4 years and 8 months ago
Why do you think it will look different if we use an air gun to face nail it?
stevecym | 4 years and 8 months ago
with respect to finishes. People working on old houses would be wise to stay away from Home Depot and Lowes. also, do not use contractors who shop in those places for anything more than drywall, plywood, screws and nails and if they are hanging drywall, they should not be finishing your woodwork. Home depot and lowes still carry the Bona and Varathane that 2345bcde is alluding to. Varathane is what i was using in 1995 (i refinished a stage on 57th street in 1995 with varathane) and i do not think it has changed since. the rest of the world has changed a lot since 1995 (all except that other guy who posts on here, he is still using Formbys).
Urbandad, the street shoe will come with just enough dye in it (it looks orange in the plastic jug) to tone the floor enough for a 19th century house with a little bit of 21st century brightness. if it is a little too light, and i would not make that decision until after the second coat, a couple of drops of orange tint will do it (the universal tints in the plastic tube at the paint stores work well in water base finis hes, otherwise Transtint). that’s what the pros do. if you start dropping dye into things, even a couple of drops, keep a recipe book. for a long time i did not and then i learned when people called me back to do more work. i did not yet keep a recipe book in 2012 when i did that staircase i posted the photo of and consequently if they called me back to do more work, i would be left guessing.
if we wish to work on old houses, we have to think out of the box. almost like an artist.
with respect to face nailing old floors. when i was a child growing up in a house built in 1947, i thought the T&G floors, those that were edge nailed, were old. then i grew up and moved to the city and learned about strip flooring. Strip flooring is the old flooring in this city and it predates the T&G. They began developing modern woodworking machinery in the brownstone period. this machinery allowed them to run continuous lengths of T&G (modern door making, cutting a continuous joint in the stile of the door and assembling the door around the panels grew out of this same technology and we see modern doors by about 1920). in my 1928 house, they still used strip flooring. strip flooring is face nailed. outside of modern adhesives, i know of no way to apply it.
they did put filler in the nail holes in the old floors. at least in the better houses. if you wish to fill the holes, i would do so after sanding with the 60 grit. if you wait until before 100 grit, you might not get all the filler out of the grain. when i fill holes in projects, i often seal the wood and fill after and then immediately wipe the filler off the work with a cloth. you can fill with a dyed epoxy (you will not find that a HD or lowes) after screening after the second coat. you have to work fast if you use the epoxy and wipe hard and fast.
2345bcde | 4 years and 8 months ago
A brad from a nail gun is much thinner then the nails that were originally used. If you’re going to use brads you may as well glue it down. I’ve faced nailed down floors with hammer nails and a punch. They don’t look right when you use a brad gun.
hkapstein | 4 years and 8 months ago
I was planning to use 15 gauge finish nails, you think they would not look right coming from an air gun?