# Hand Scrape Floor



## TakePride (Oct 9, 2008)

Here is a floor I did last year. Thought I would share some pics with you guys. It is random width bubinga ranging from 6-28" wide and most of the boards are 12' to 14' long. I hand scraped everything myself. It took forever. Black stain and gloss finish. I have a bunch of pics, but here is a sample.



Tell me what you think.


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## the big 12 inch (Jan 22, 2009)

Nice work there!..Good to see someone on here that REALLY knows the trade...I hope they paid ya well...


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## mikeswoods (Oct 11, 2008)

That place is the HIGH END of high end. Just what do you do to earn that kind of money??


Nice floors,too.


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## WarnerConstInc. (Jan 30, 2008)

6" to 28" wide? That is a huge board.


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## PrecisionFloors (Jan 24, 2006)

Very, very nice work! Installation details? Those are some huge planks....can only see doing that with extremely stable woods.


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## TakePride (Oct 9, 2008)

This floor was pretty tough to do. It was by far the most intense floor I have done. None of the boards were end matched so I had to go through and square cut and router them for t&g. I spent 3 solid months just scraping all the wood. 
Install was tough. If it wasn't for my festool plunge circular saw I never could have cut anything. Upstairs, the nosing for the handrail was already installed. Cutting those wide boards to match that radius took lots of care. 
The home owner wanted it super black. They didn't want any red coming through which was tough to do with bubinga. I tried everything to get it dark enough for them yet still be transparent. In the end I used black wood stain from general finishes. It was better than any dye I could come up with.
Boards were wiped down with acetone before staining. Stain was applied and then topped with a few coats of high gloss poly.

I would hate to clean this floor, every bit of dirt shows up. Its what the customer wanted so I guess as long as they are happy its good!

More pictures are here:

http://s300.photobucket.com/albums/nn14/gracefulpete/Hand Scrape/


Thanks guys


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## TakePride (Oct 9, 2008)

mikeswoods said:


> That place is the HIGH END of high end. Just what do you do to earn that kind of money??
> 
> 
> Nice floors,too.


Haha, that was one of the first things I asked him too. He owns a big developent company out of chicago.


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## bconley (Mar 8, 2009)

Nice!
I did a Bubinga bar top last summer one solid slab 2.5 in thick 3ft.x 10ft we left the bark on the edges really cool wood.
That kitchen and stair are awesome whats up with the balusters? never seen three different balusters in that pattern.
I am trim guy through and through and love those kind of jobs


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## astor (Dec 19, 2008)

*Great work*

Wow!! Looks great! :thumbup:You are one lucky guy! Your client was willing to wait that long, just to get what he is looking for. Not many clients are that patient (not mine at least). Just one thing that I would not agree with the designer-nothing to do with you- is glossy floors,I think it will look better with satin finish. Once they forced me do the same thing:furious:
If you are a member of NWFA, I suggest you submit this for the yearly contest.
Your craftsmanship shows.


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## root69 (Jan 17, 2010)

*nice*

Nice looking floor, i did a floor similar to this a cpl years back that were 6" to 18", it was awesome as is ur's, how much were the materials on this job per ft, again nice work


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## TakePride (Oct 9, 2008)

root69 said:


> Nice looking floor, i did a floor similar to this a cpl years back that were 6" to 18", it was awesome as is ur's, how much were the materials on this job per ft, again nice work


The home owner had purchased most of the flooring before I started so I can't give exact prices but only what he told me. I know the 6" boards were in the $20/sf range and for the super wide boards it was between around $40/sf.


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## root69 (Jan 17, 2010)

*nice*

dang how many ft were there lol, i am sure ur labor wasn't peanuts either, i know mine wouldn't have been


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## TakePride (Oct 9, 2008)

root69 said:


> dang how many ft were there lol, i am sure ur labor wasn't peanuts either, i know mine wouldn't have been


It was a hair over 3000sf. I bid it a bit lower than I wanted to but it was still decent. If it wouldn't have taken so long I would have done much better than I did.


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## WarnerConstInc. (Jan 30, 2008)

I wondered if a TS-55 or 75 was involved in that.
Was this house in Indiana?


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## TakePride (Oct 9, 2008)

WarnerConstInc. said:


> I wondered if a TS-55 or 75 was involved in that.
> Was this house in Indiana?


You guessed it! Festool TS-55. Best purchase I ever made.


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## PrecisionFloors (Jan 24, 2006)

TakePride said:


> You guessed it! Festool TS-55. Best purchase I ever made.


:thumbsup: I love mine too. I picked up a TS-55, 1400EQ router, extra guide rail, and a CT-22 all at the same time a few years ago....best tool purchases I've ever made outside of my Supercut. 

So what was the install method? Glue & Nail?


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## TakePride (Oct 9, 2008)

Everything was scraped on a bench beforehand. The whole floor was glued and nailed down. When I say glued I mean complete coverage trowel spread Bostik's Best. I did everything I could to help minimize movement on such wide planks.


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## PrecisionFloors (Jan 24, 2006)

TakePride said:


> Everything was scraped on a bench beforehand. The whole floor was glued and nailed down. When I say glued I mean complete coverage trowel spread Bostik's Best. I did everything I could to help minimize movement on such wide planks.


Gotcha. That's what I figured. I bet that was aggravating as hell.


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## pinwheel (Dec 7, 2009)

TakePride said:


> Everything was scraped on a bench beforehand. The whole floor was glued and nailed down. When I say glued I mean complete coverage trowel spread Bostik's Best. I did everything I could to help minimize movement on such wide planks.



That is one good looking, time consuming floor. I don't think it would be gloating to give yourself a big pat on the back for that one.:thumbup:


I'd be interested to hear how well the bostiks holds those wide planks over time. I'm getting ready to lay some random width cypress in my own home using bostiks. 11" boards have me apprehensive.


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## TakePride (Oct 9, 2008)

pinwheel said:


> That is one good looking, time consuming floor. I don't think it would be gloating to give yourself a big pat on the back for that one.:thumbup:
> 
> 
> I'd be interested to hear how well the bostiks holds those wide planks over time. I'm getting ready to lay some random width cypress in my own home using bostiks. 11" boards have me apprehensive.



Bostiks is by far the best adhesive I have found. Bostiks provides the best adhesion but its ability to remain elastic is were it really shines. I did lots of testing a couple years ago with various glues. I found that even a small "quarter" size blob of bostiks will require a prybar to remove a board from the subfloor. It most cases it will stretch up to about an inche before failing. When you consider how much glue you actually put down on a floor, I would be very surprised if there is much (if any) movement.


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