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| Chris O:
Hello, Could you please tell me how to split parquet flooring blocks in half length-ways? I am thinking of sawing the block in half so that the half with the tar on can be thrown away leaving the 'good' half to be laid down. Do you know what saw to use to secure the block and it be rigged up so that each block is the same depth? The parquet blocks are of different depths at the moment but the same length and width. Hope I am making sense. Much appreciated. Chris O |
| Lew_Merrick_PE:
Chris, I assume from this is that you want to resaw the blocks to an even thickness. Depending on the material and size, a table saw with a zero-clearance throat is likely to be your best bet. The thing is that, if they are too short to clear the blade in a single pass, you will need to support them as they are driven through the saw. I do this using a piece of square (or rectangular) aluminum tube that has had the ends closed off, a vacuum connection port established on the "top" side, and then a series of small holes drilled such that you can lay a line of blocks end-to-end along the tube and have a stop-key placed to keep them from being pushed out of place by the blade. The vacuum (I usually use a Bernoulli-generator as my vacuum source) holds the blocks to the guide. Double-back tape will also work, but you have to clean off the adhesive from your blocks when you are done. You can do the same thing on a bandsaw with only a rip fence, but you are likely to have to rework the sawn surface afterwards. You will likely need a zero-clearance throat insert for your bandsaw as well. |
| awemawson:
I laid second hand parquet in my last workshop and had the same problem. It was easily solved by having a pan of molten tar on an electric ring on the floor, and gently dipping the blocks in one by one as I laid them. Any unveneness in thickness was sorted by running a belt sander over them in situ. They were still stuck down firmly when I left 25 years later! |
| andyf:
Chris, one difficulty you might face if some blocks are well worn on the top is that using the top as a datum surface will leave the tongues and grooves on different blocks at varying heights from their new undersides. That might cause difficulties when laying them. Lew's method of cutting batches of them on a bandsaw or circular saw might suffer a similar problem, in that the T & Gs might interlock so a worn block between two unworn ones would be held away from the fence. But in that case the T & Gs would all end up at the right distance from the underside, so any unevenness on the top once they were laid could be dealt with by creating a mountain of dust with the floor sander. I write as one whose father once brought a few thousand home after they were ripped up in an office refurb, spent several hours a week over a number of months laboriously chipping the pitch off the back of each one, shrank the internal dimensions of his garage 9" by leaving them stacked around two of its walls to a height of 6' for a few years, and then sold the lot for peanuts when he realised that the project would never get finished. :loco: Andy Edited to remove some garbled nonsense below my sign-off |
| Chris O:
I am grateful for your replies. Having a think now and will report back. Thanks for your time. Chris O |
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