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Laminated flooring - every day's a schoolday

RogerS

RogerS

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And off to pastures new
I'd never used this stuff before and, to be honest, I'm pushing things to post this under general woodworking since there is only a passing resemblance to wood and that is the grain pattern imprinted on the rock hard blade-blunting stuff.

I'd naively thought that this stuff was laminated as in a thin layer of wood on top of ply. How could I be so stupid? The giveway was when I saw a couple of tiny sparks coming from it when cross-cutting a piece to length. The second giveaway was when later on I struggled to cut some ply and nearly set the smoke alarm off. I had made just 20 cuts.

This stuff is cheap and nasty. Looks OK and good enough for our place as nothing better is warranted.

My question for the jury is....do I get a couple of new Festool blades or do I buy the cheapest cross-cut saw with the cheapest blades as I have two more small rooms and a landing to do upstairs.
 
I use a jig saw with a metal cutting (or similar) blade. I found what's needed is a blade with fine teeth and then cut on the 'up' stroke with the laminate face down. I was also fooled into thinking the laminate surface is easy; it's not! - Rob
 
You can get laminate cutters that are a bit like a guillotine and they work, at least the one O borrowed a few years ago for a small job did. The cheapies are around £40 - £50.

I've fitted a lot of laminate for people and always used a jigsaw with a downcutting blade or throw away hardpoint handsaws which are dirt cheap. I'd never consider using decent circular saw blades.

I know you're aware Roger but laminate chips in the peepers are not good so always eye protection.

Edit: First cheapie I came across after a quicjk search.
 
There are various types of this flooring all often placed under the label of laminated and with some very different problems when it comes to working with it. I brought some offcuts from my local timber merchants to use as a floor in a new wardrobe I am building, it has a 22mm plywood core with a wood effect finish and cuts well on my 300 mm mitre saw but a while back I used some other stuff and it was horrid, chipped and made some bad smells although it was much thinner. To get a good cut use a decent blade with a larger number of teeth rather than cheaper blades.
 
The thin layer of wood on top of ply is usually called "engineered flooring", in my experience.
 
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Lons said:
You can get laminate cutters that are a bit like a guillotine and they work, at least the one O borrowed a few years ago for a small job did. The cheapies are around £40 - £50.

I've fitted a lot of laminate for people and always used a jigsaw with a downcutting blade or throw away hardpoint handsaws which are dirt cheap. I'd never consider using decent circular saw blades.

I know you're aware Roger but laminate chips in the peepers are not good so always eye protection.

Edit: First cheapie I came across after a quicjk search.
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Nice idea, Bob, but our laminate is 14mm think. That needs seriously spendy money.
 
RogerS said:
I'd never used this stuff before and, to be honest, I'm pushing things to post this under general woodworking since there is only a passing resemblance to wood and that is the grain pattern imprinted on the rock hard blade-blunting stuff.

I'd naively thought that this stuff was laminated as in a thin layer of wood on top of ply. How could I be so stupid? The giveway was when I saw a couple of tiny sparks coming from it when cross-cutting a piece to length. The second giveaway was when later on I struggled to cut some ply and nearly set the smoke alarm off. I had made just 20 cuts.

This stuff is cheap and nasty. Looks OK and good enough for our place as nothing better is warranted.

My question for the jury is....do I get a couple of new Festool blades or do I buy the cheapest cross-cut saw with the cheapest blades as I have two more small rooms and a landing to do upstairs.
Click to expand...
Sparks Rodger, this has never happened to me. Yes laminate floor is hard on blades.
 
RogerS said:
Nice idea, Bob, but our laminate is 14mm think. That needs seriously spendy money.
Click to expand...
I suspect that's wot they call 'engineered' wood. 'Normal' el cheapo laminate is around 10mm thick and a jigosaurus cuts it beautiful. It's also incredibly hard wearing; I put some down nearly two decades ago and there's no sign of wear - Rob
 
Woodbloke said:
I suspect that's wot they call 'engineered' wood. 'Normal' el cheapo laminate is around 10mm thick and a jigosaurus cuts it beautiful. It's also incredibly hard wearing; I put some down nearly two decades ago and there's no sign of wear - Rob
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No. Engineered floorboards have a wear layer of hardwood on top, oak etc bonded to a thicker layer of ply. The thickness of the wear layer drives the price to a certain extent. The stuff we put into our last place had a wear layer of 8mm. We’re putting 3mm stuff into the current place!

The 14mm thickness of the laminate flooring that started this thread is ‘creative’ as a few mm are the attached underlay.

I see that Festool have a special blade for laminates and that’s the route I’ll take. Over the years I seem to have accumulated a number of different types of blade for my KS-60. There is bound to be one suitable for proper wood !
 
I fitted engineered boards (Kahrs) in a single bedroom years ago and laminate (generic from shedj) in a large double bedroom here. All cross cuts on both were done by hand with a Champion mitre saw with a fine toothed blade. The long edge cuts were done were done on the BS with little if any splintering. All the cut edges were hidden under skirting which also covered the necessary expansion gap and would have covered any rough edges had there been any.
Doing it by hand meant little or no dust so less equipment to haul around the house. Of course it took longer but worth it IMHO.
 
The last lot I put down was Wickes 12 mm with some sort of fancy click together system but despite my cynicism it worked just fine and after three years in a heavily trafficked area it still looks brand new.
The previous job ten years ago was , like Rogers,an eye opener but not in a good way.
A woodgrain cloured vinyl,bonded to a thin woodgrain textured metal foil bonded to a board?
Home territory for an Evolution saw I thought.
First cut,like Rogers sparks.
Second cut was laboured and smokey
Third 'cut' just burned halfway through.
Blade ruined.
I just bought a pile of cheap crosscut blades and a stepdown ring and used them as disposables to finish the job.
 
A possible cause of sparks could be that the fibrous part of the board has fragments of metal in it. They could be from nails or staples not removed from the recycled material used to make the fibres. I've seen similar in chipboard.
 
RogerS said:
As many will know, I am unconvinced by the necessity in any normal environment.
Click to expand...
I fitted out a kitchen and hall in a large farmhouse which was bone dry, for a friend. He insisted that I didn't remove or cut under the existing skirtings and wouldn't have a cover strip. Despite my serious misgivings and dire warnings, (I almost turned it down but it was part of a much larger job and he owned the local Angler's Arms pub so additional benefits ;)), I did it then a few months later some of it had buckled at the joints and had to be re laid so as far as I'm concerned an expansion gap is good advice.
 
North American floor fixings tend to be nails. They might screw down external decking, but there’s gaps between screwed decking boards. (Duke may do things differently of course)

When I laid a floating oak floor last summer (no gaps between boards), I left 15 mm expansion gaps and considered my wood to be acclimatised. After adding oil the floor expanded so much it was threatening to consume (and would have consumed) the entire gap. I had to cut the floor in place. It certainly convinced me of the need for expansion gaps.

(The wood may not have been as well acclimatised as I thought. It was in an adjacent room for several months but had kind of a plastic sheet over it. Didn’t notice any expansion until after applying the oil though).
 
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AndyT said:
A possible cause of sparks could be that the fibrous part of the board has fragments of metal in it. They could be from nails or staples not removed from the recycled material used to make the fibres. I've seen similar in chipboard.
Click to expand...
The sparks I got were a continuous flow like a tiny angle grinder at work
 
RogerS said:
Mmmmmm……so you screw down each board. So how are those boards going to expand to fill that expansion gap around the perimeter?
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That’s a very good question Roger, one that I’ve asked myself a few times, the 18mm ply floor underneath certainly isn’t going to stretch.
But where does the force go? If the ply wasn’t fastened down the whole thing would go barrel shaped I suppose.
My main experience is fitting 20mm? solid Oak T&G floorboards to a ply base using those tiny head screws, several diagonally through each tongue. Never seen any movement and I’ve laid a few floors.
Ian
 
I don't screw hardwood or engineered hardwood flooring just pin it down with a floor nailer or staple nailer.
Never have glued down plastic laminate (click) flooring.
I have used product from alot of different manufacturers and instructions always say follow the recommended spacing at perimeter walls etc.
Never had a call back.
 
duke said:
I don't screw hardwood or engineered hardwood flooring just pin it down with a floor nailer or staple nailer.
Never have glued down plastic laminate (click) flooring.
I have used product from alot of different manufacturers and instructions always say follow the recommended spacing at perimeter walls etc.
Never had a call back.
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Screwed or nailed surely makes no odds. Those boards are fixed in place and ain’t going to move!
 
I got two lab stools out of a skip after they had been in there for a wet weekend, both tops where finished on only side and they cupped so much they pulled the screws out of the top.
They did dry out and the tops flattened out.

Pete
 
Interesting experience above on laminate flooring.
The company where I did contract work imported laminate flooring from a sister company in Spain.
The stuff has a melamine surface bonded to thin MDF and sealed with a resin (think formaldehyde).

Just do NOT ever slosh water near or over.
The MDF tends to blossom like a spring flower show. Result - lift and replace sections or whole floor. There was leak in the bathroom one weekend (offices). The water flowed over the tiles and then hit the laminate floor. Expensive replacement if not covered by insurance.
 
RogerS said:
Screwed or nailed surely makes no odds. Those boards are fixed in place and ain’t going to move!
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I'm not sure that is correct, Roger. Screwed down, certainly nothing much moves. But nails are a lot softer and have some give in them. They will accommodate a little movement without losing hold.
S
 
Steve Maskery said:
I'm not sure that is correct, Roger. Screwed down, certainly nothing much moves. But nails are a lot softer and have some give in them. They will accommodate a little movement without losing hold.
S
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Yebbut...board 1 has nails that will allow, say, 0.5mm movement. As will the next board. So board 1 moves by that 0.5mm which pushes against board 2. But now nt only does board 2 need to move its 0.5mm but also another 0.5mm to accomodate board 1. Scale that up across the average room.

I rest my case !
 
The only things I have noted when the trade fits a laminate floor is the fancy underlay and they don't butt it up against a wall to give room for movement. The guys use a term "floating floor" which was interesting as this implies it can move around and when you dig deeper then it does make sense but there is probably different methods for different manufacturers of the laminate.

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I thought one of the advantages of man made materials like laminate, ply and MDF was stability compared to real wood which tends to move around a lot.
 
When we built my workshop back in Blighty, that was a floating floor - polyurethane-coated chipboard, Caberfloor. Fantastic stuff. We laid it witha hefty gap all round the edge, but before long that gap had reduced to almost nothing, a few millimetres only. Man-made boards are not totally dimensionally stable, just better than some solid woods.
S
 
Spectric said:
I thought one of the advantages of man made materials like laminate, ply and MDF was stability compared to real wood which tends to move around a lot.
Click to expand...
Totally agree with you. Having said that there has to be different construction for the various laminates. After all, as you say, they are manmade. Now the laminate we have say it is OK to have water on it for 24 hours. They also have another range that is waterproof.

I do seem to recall their instructions saying that the flooring was hygroscopic. Must check as I have some unopened packs.
 
Think back to your school days and chemistry lessons, those blue Copper Sulphate crystals that are hydroscopic and if warmed up turn into a white powder that went back to blue when water is added again. A more common example is brake fluid, that happily absorbs moisture from the atmosphere due to being hydroscopic. I really hope your laminate floor is not hydroscopic !
 
Spectric said:
Think back to your school days and chemistry lessons, those blue Copper Sulphate crystals that are hydroscopic and if warmed up turn into a white powder that went back to blue when water is added again. A more common example is brake fluid, that happily absorbs moisture from the atmosphere due to being hydroscopic. I really hope your laminate floor is not hydroscopic !
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I’m afraid you are wrong. You’re thinking of anhydrous and extrapolating that to ‘hydroscopic’. That is wrong and Google agrees with me.

The word is ‘hyGroscopic’
 
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