Kitchen worktop from oak flooring

[guethary]

Has anyone made their own kitchen worktops from any kiln dried floor boards. I was thinking of gluing them to ply or MDF. Any ideas appreciated.

 

[Bodgers]

I started my unintended woodworking hobby via the idea that I wood use some left over solid oak flooring for a built in office desk, using it for the worktop.

It didn't pan out - I ended buying oak boards for the frame and veneered ply for the top.

Reason was the sheer amount of work in surfacing preparing the flooring. A lot of mine were warped, and also needed the edge bevels removing, and hence the T&Gs ripping off them. Also mine was rustic grade stuff, so once it had been planed down there was a sea of epoxy in all the knots and figure that really was crazy hard on the tools.

If you have nice clean, straight flooring it might work ok.


Those more knowledgeable will be able to answer on whether it is a good idea to glue to another substrate. Gut feeling is there might be some issues of expansion and contraction of the thick oak top vs the stable plywood, but I could be wrong

 

[guethary]

Thanks for that and insights. I thought there could be issues. I have some engineered oak flooring ( I just bought a few meteres to see what it was like really) It would be more stable than solid oak and is already on a substrate so won't move.
I have some really good and relatively old pine boards a neighbour threw out. Massive pieces and about 40mm thick and all jointed properly to make very wide surfaces. However frustratingly there isn't enough to do the kitchen. I was thinking of mixing wood on different parts of the kitchen area. Maybe I will just buy some oak boards, as you did (38mm kiln dried). Alternative could be ash...or even a good pitch pine...any photos/ideas gratefully received.

 

[TomGW]

?.........I have some really good and relatively old pine boards a neighbour threw out. Massive pieces and about 40mm thick and all jointed properly to make very wide surfaces. However frustratingly there isn't enough to do the kitchen. I was thinking of mixing wood on different parts of the kitchen area. Maybe I will just buy some oak boards, as you did (38mm kiln dried). Alternative could be ash...or even a good pitch pine...any photos/ideas gratefully received.

If you intend to use the pine boards as worktops, but don't have sufficient, did you consider combining the timber with marble or granite in part of the kitchen? The contrasting natural materials can deliver a very satisfactory result.