Flooring

I have a natural wooden floor that is about 50 years old. They look like 1 inch thick pine planks but there are some 1/4 inch gaps between them. Any ideas on the best way to fill these as I am just about to sand the floor back to its natural colour from a dark stain and would like them filled first.

Reply to
BTInternet
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When you sand the floors, don't blow or sweep out the dust between the planks. Apply the finish and everything will be copacetic.

Regards, Tom Thomas J. Watson-Cabinetmaker Gulph Mills, Pennsylvania

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Reply to
Tom Watson

Ask this old house had the same situation. They soaked rope in stain and pushed the rope in the gaps. It actually looked pretty good.

Reply to
Ruster

Any flooring people on this list?

A local TV channel ran a consumer segment of flooring citing recent Consumer Reports tests.

Winner was Bamboo.

Not only did it have better wear characteristics but also lower cost than Oak.

Anybody with first hand experience?

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

The only experience I have with bamboo is this gardening freak next door planted huge amounts of it on hos property. Hundreds of bamboo plants of several species now occupy every square inch of his property.

Now I spend time almost every weekend cutting it down and trying to beat it back to the fence. It is insidious. It just takes over. Definitely an invasive species. It does not stay on his property. It wants to take over the neighborhood.

Reply to
Lee Michaels

In news:0043b0af$0$14617$ snipped-for-privacy@news.astraweb.com, Lee Michaels dropped this bit of = wisdom:

Lee, you must remember that bamboo is really grass. When it gets the chance it will spread out. If you get lucky he will have planted the "Giant" form and pretty soon = you will have a fine Panda habitat.

LOL

P D Q

Reply to
PDQ

Three words:

Two Four Dee

Reply to
Dave Balderstone

Should be able to get a couple of cane poles for fishing.

If he has a compost pile, you got worms.

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

In news:Jzy2m.128$ snipped-for-privacy@nwrddc02.gnilink.net, Lew Hodgett dropped this bit of wisdom:

Not too sure how it is over your way but ---

Oak is about $5-8 a square foot and Bamboo is about $3 in Canuckistan.

I have plans to do my hidey-hole in grass for about $400. I think the = grass will last longer in my basement that oak would. With any luck = I'll get back about 15% come tax-time.

Don't know about wear and tear yet, but it will have to go some to beat = my oak floors. 12 years and still no discernable wear.

P D Q

Reply to
PDQ

Oak is about $5-8 a square foot and Bamboo is about $3 in Canuckistan.

Sounds about right for oak, based on the piece, bamboo was about $4-$5 SQF

You might want to look at it.

Had oak flooring in living room and dining room for the 25 years I lived in the place, but never saw it.

Wall to wall carpeting you know.

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

"Winner?" What were the tests? Compared to bamboo-looking laminate, laminate is:

  • Cheaper
  • Won't dent
  • Wears better
  • Is impervious to UV rays
  • Virtually waterproof
  • Never needs "refinishing"
Reply to
HeyBub

Cut a trench!

The roots are shallow and won't go deep. Use a grass killer. It is a grass.

The shoots are used in Asian foods. But you don't have to eat it.

Good luck. I wanted the Giant bamboo - 4-8" in diameter but alas, I might not be able to control it.

Mart>> Any flooring people on this list?

Reply to
Martin H. Eastburn

Check with Consumer Reports.

They ran the tests.

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

Sure. I put it down in my last house, in the kitchen, dining room, and hallways. I used the vertical stacked medium carbonized version. I liked it a lot, except it looked "too perfect". Kinda like a bowling alley. It seemed to wear well, though it does dent. We also have it in this house, though in a horizontal light carbonized, in the great room, hall, and dining room. This stuff is clearly different than what we used in the previous house. It scratches badly (it's a new house and was badly scratched before we moved in) and has faded a lot. It's clear looking at the line under the door to a closet.

Bottom line - I liked it a lot in our previous house. I don't like this stuff at all. Why the difference? - no clue, but I'd probably rip this stuff out and do wood if it weren't glued down (slab construction).

Reply to
krw

Thank you for the input.

The stuff C/R tested didn't dent or scratch.

There must be several grades of bamboo flooring.

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

Or Consumer Reports was trying to dent it with a wet noodle and scratch it with a pencil eraser, which would be par for the course for them.

Reply to
J. Clarke

Good idea? Got their number handy?

Reply to
HeyBub

The stuff is insidious. People saying to use grass killer apparently have never tried to kill the stuff off. You'd have to make your property a Superfund cleanup site if you used enough chemicals to kill it. You basically have to scorch the earth, kill every living thing off - good plants and bad, good lifeforms and bad - and then hope it doesn't come back when you try to repopulate the parcel.

I'm in the northeast and the growing season is shorter than some places - I can't imagine what it would be like growing in a 4 season growing climate.

Someone mentioned digging a trench - that's how to start containing it. Then you have to install an impervious barrier about 18" to 24" deep. The runners will go down and around or even up and over a barrier, so it has to go deep, and the top of the barrier should be a couple of inches above grade so you can see if the runners are trying to clamber over the barrier. Like I said, the stuff is insidious.

R
Reply to
RicodJour

...

Reminds me of an incident from years gone by... :)

The "scourge of the south" is, of course, kudzu (a Japanese import brought in during the 30s in an (ill-conceived) attempt to reclaim some of the worst of the old continuous cotton-planting erosion problems).

Anyway, while in E TN where it is a problem but not nearly as much as farther south since the winters do kill it back where we were, had a job for DOE in conjunction w/ another company. Their representative was from Pittsburgh and a _REAL_ pita to deal with both in and out of the office. One day as the the job was _finally_ coming to an end we, as good southern hosts, took this fella' and his visiting boss out to a nice lunch at a local eatery on the lake. He asked what that pretty ground cover was going down the banks to the lake saying he had an area in his back yard that needed something that would hold on a hill. We sent him home w/ enough plantings to bury the house in a couple of years...

If one day Pittsburgh is swallowed up by kudzu, you'll know "the rest of the story" :)

--

Reply to
dpb

The stuff is insidious. People saying to use grass killer apparently have never tried to kill the stuff off. You'd have to make your property a Superfund cleanup site if you used enough chemicals to kill it. You basically have to scorch the earth, kill every living thing off - good plants and bad, good lifeforms and bad - and then hope it doesn't come back when you try to repopulate the parcel.

I'm in the northeast and the growing season is shorter than some places - I can't imagine what it would be like growing in a 4 season growing climate.

Someone mentioned digging a trench - that's how to start containing it. Then you have to install an impervious barrier about 18" to 24" deep. The runners will go down and around or even up and over a barrier, so it has to go deep, and the top of the barrier should be a couple of inches above grade so you can see if the runners are trying to clamber over the barrier. Like I said, the stuff is insidious.

R

-- doesn't the stuff die out after it blooms, and it all blooms at once? just wait for that to occur, or import a bunch of pandas on h1b visas.

maybe the zoo will take your cuttings.

Reply to
charlie

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