My architect friend reviewed my shop plans today. He had one suggestion. The
floor. He recently used the following concept for the remodel of a
commercial machine shop.

He took ordinary 2x4s. Cut the timber into 2-inch blocks. The blocks were
laid down right over the concrete slab, with only  a 6 mil plastic moisture
barrier. 

The blocks are laid down as a parquet, end down, so the top view is a 3.5x2
inch matrix of wood. The depth is also 2". There is no need for sleepers
along the side, only some shimming to keep the assembly tightly knit. No
pressure treated lumber, no glue, no waves, no buckling or sagging (that
would be waves), no cold feet, no collapsing under the weight of heavy
machinery.

Nothing short of a nuclear reactor vessel is going to crush a 2x4
cross-section of wood. Pressure treated wood might help the longevity.

I asked how one would true the surface of such a floor once installed. He
said the finish carpenter on his job used a jointer plane. Can you believe
it? A hand plane. The big machinery was simply rolled in smoothly on dollies
and a forklift. Riggers did that part of it.

It just occurred to me that this would be ideal for a shop with a sloped
subfloor. Just taper the cuts of 2x4 blocks.

Facing the awful alternative of the Buckminster Fuller appearance of OSB
with full varnish coating, damned if I'm not going to try this when I build
my new shop. This is my kind of high tech. Any thoughts out there in
shop-land?

Gary Curtis

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