laying tongue and grove floorbaord the "wrong" way

[urchaidh]

I have about a third of a room to lay with new tongue and groove floorboard, the other two thirds being the orignal tongue and groove - I've lifted a couple of the original boards, the rest of the gap is as a result of enlarging the room.

The original board were layed in the opposite direction from the way I now have to work, following conventional wisdom that one starts with the tongue against the wall and lay each board against exposed tongue of the last one, blind nailing through the tonge.

I now have to start in the middle and work the other way, i.e. with the groove exposed rather than the tongue. I can't see this posing any real problems except that I'll have to either blind nail through the groove or exposed nail down through the board. The blind nailing will be slow as every nail will be have to be pushed the last 10mm with a punch, exposed nailing is a less satisfactory finish.

Anyone got any comments. Anyone tried blind nailing through the groove.

[S Viemeister]

Could you insert a spline in the exposed groove? Then you'd have a tongue facing in the right direction?

Sheila

[urchaidh]

I did wonder about that. I have a 4m lenth to join and couldn't figure out where to get that length of suitable biscuit that was a close enough match to get a good joint. It wouldn't have to be a continous length, but I would want it run all the way along to seal the joint and it would still have to be a very good match to get as neat a joint as sticking with the tongue and groove.

[S Viemeister]

Do you have a router? You could probably use scraps/offcuts of your flooring (giving you a head start on the spline), and rout to fit.

Sheila

[Brian G]

urchaidh,

Very often (that's the normal way) and it's more tedious than difficult. The real fun starts when you are doing this on a matchboard ceiling - it's b***dy murder on the shoulders.

By the way, 'blind nailing' through the tongue should be avoided - it will/could give problems when butting the groove up to it - the nail is an obstacle (unless you can get right at the 'shoulder' of the tongue and skew the nail in at a decent angle - but even that can leave signs of the nail in the finished job)

Brian G

[Stuart Noble]

IME best to use mdf or hardboard for this as anything with a grain will give you a weak joint, and small sections cut across the grain will tend to split when you nail them.

[urchaidh]

I've butted the twp baord together using a couple of offcuts of 4mm ply glued in as jointing strip. Nice neat joint.

Sheila - thanks for the push into doing the right thing.

[rjs]

I was going to say that the only time I installed T+G I nailed through the groove using a punch to push the nails right out of the way of the tongue.

Richard

[S Viemeister]

I'm glad you've solved your problem!

Sheila