I am considering making my own floor boards by hand. However,
I don't know what sort of planes to use for the tongue and
groove. My understanding is that the tongue and groove should
be slighly below center to allow for multiple sandings. Has anyone
ever done this and, if so, what did you use to make the tongue &
groove? If I must use an electric router, I won't do it. I'll
just buy the pre-grooved floor boards.

Don Clark

They have tongue and groove planes for this.  The Stanley #48 is a metal
plane to accomplish both tasks in 3/4 inch stock.  The 49 is for thinner stock.

You can also use wooden planes for this.  You can see some examples of the
Ohio wooden molding planes used for this by following the links on my
webpage to my woodworking page and onward.

I suspect that with 3/4 inch stock you don't need to worry about keeping
the tongue below center.  It won't be sanded to that level in your
children's lifetime.  (At least the yellow pine in our 1914 house still has
lots of thickness left even after a dumb previous owner had at them with a
drum sander.)  BTW, I think that the new vibrating pad sanders for floors
are much better than the drums which can gouge a hole in no time.  But it
might be fun to see how a plane would do for that task.

Mark

Mark van Roojen                                         P.O. Box 83836
Department of Philosophy                        Lincoln, NE 68501-3836
University of Nebraska                                  (402) 438-3724 (h)
1010 Oldfather Hall                                     (402) 472-2428 (w)
Lincoln, NE 68588-0321                          (402) 472-0626 (fax)
(msv@u...)                              Webpage: http://www.geocities.com/~mvr1
/

At 1:42 PM -0700 9/24/99, zipperbow@y... wrote:
>I am considering making my own floor boards by hand.

The tongue and groove joint is a very old joint. Long before there
were metal planes for this joint, there were pairs of woodie planes,
one for each side of the joint.  Once they started to make planes out
of metal, all sorts of inventors came up with tongue and groove
planes.  Most of these were an attempt to make both functions into
one tool, and had some way to change the blade to cut both parts.
Some were just two planes in one, where you'd turn the tongue plane
upside down or backwards to use the grove plane.  Also, the
combination planes all had at least one tongue cutter that matched a
groove cutter.

Me, I'd use my brand new Stanley combination plane.  It's not an old
tool, and it's far from as nice as a 45, but I couldn't afford a
complete 45 in usable condition, and I can't use anything electric.
Also, I intend it to be a starter plane, replacing it slowly with a
set of one function planes.

For you, I'd recommend scanning through Patrick Leach's Blood and
Gore <http://www.supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan0.htm> for match and
combination planes to get an idea of what's available.  Stanley made
at least one variation of each theme I know of in metal match planes.
Decide what kind you'd prefer, and get to work on that floor.

By the way, Stanley made the #11 1/2 floor plane for finishing
floors.  I also vaguely remember hearing about a plane with a long
handle so you can stand and plane the floor.

-----------------
Eric Damien Berna
<mailto:woodworker@b...>

My growing family's web site, <http://www.bernafamily.com>,
is always in development.  I'd appreciate constructive comments.

I'm working on the workshop section.

Hi, All
        25 years ago when I led a boys' 4H woodworking club, we built a
small building (still standing) and T&G'd all the floor boards using a
Stanley 48. The ten-year olds enjoyed doing this, and with wide pine
boards it went easily; but I don't think that I would enjoy doing it with
3" oak for a large room.
        Trevor