Parquet Question

[AndyBoyd]

I have just sanded down the kitchen parquet floor in the house in Italy as it was extremely dirty, and was very surprised when not only the central star motif came out wonderfully but a border of flower chains came too - just staggering. :lol: :lol:

Now I have sanded a little too far in a few places so about 10-20 nails are now exposed.

I will be oiling the floor again, and was wondering what to do with these expose nail heads?

Push them deeper and fill over them?
Or just leave them there?

they are very small and hardly noticeable at the moment.

Thanks for any advice everyone's

 

[JPEC]

Hi Andy
If you are just oiling the floor I would suggest punching them in and filling so that the heads don't go rusty, but if you are going to seal the floor, and hence the nails, then if they are not noticeable leave them as they are, imho. You could, if just oiling, seal each nail head with knotting/varnish prior to putting on the oil.

Sounds like a beautiful floor, got any pics?

Cheers
Julian

 

[AndyBoyd]

Thanks for the advice, did not bring my camera this trip, but as we are moving here in August, will be able to take plenty then.

Ciao

 

[Jasper Homminga]

Andy

When our oiled & fumed oak floor was installed they nailed them down and then filled the holes. You can sometimes (depending on the light and my mood) see the filled holes.
This may be due to a different effect of the fuming on the putty and the oak, so in retrospect I am not much help, sorry.

Jasper

 

[AndyBoyd]

Thanks for the replies, I've been reading up and googling on this, it seems our herringbone parquet is top nailed then the nails driven deep and then filled, they are very fine nails and hence these days done with a nail gun - what they used to use I do not know?????

I have found a nice parquet shop in Sarzana a very beautiful town down the valley toward La Spezia (and the man there mixed me a half a litre of filling for the pricely sum of 3€ and I learned a new phrase riempitore di legno - wood filler and parchè - parquet) he even sold me a special shaped nail punch for 9 € (must have seen me coming :roll: )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarzana

He is even coming up later today to see if he can repair a few broken places within the flower border, I must admit I am not looking forward to the quote, he had some very nice hand made designs in his shop and they seem to gop for about 1000€ a square metre (I think we are in the wrong game chaps) and repairs always seem more expensive than buidling from new

 

[AndyBoyd]

Now we are all getting very excited about the parquet here, so much so we want to do both sculleries with it, hey I can do that it looks pretty easy to me I said. ( 2 rooms about 2m x 1m each - so not a to lot do)
Now a question, the parquet (solid oak herringbone, with a wenge black strip on the oak border) is nailed and glued to the base plate which in turn is nailed and glued to the floor joists.
Now I do not have a compressor and a nail gun (not much of a Norm in that respect) so considering I do not really see the need to buy a compressor (mind you they seem pretty cheap. Lidl here sell one for 120€ and a nail gun for a further 39.99€ :shock: . Is there an alternate way to easily nail the parquet manually, so I can later bury the nail head s and fill over them?

Hand staple gun, the hammer seems risky and might dent the wood a little

Anyway any advice anyone?

 

[Paul Chapman]

Is there an alternate way to easily nail the parquet manually, so I can later bury the nail head s and fill over them?

Could you use something like a thin piece of cork with a thin slot cut in it to protect the floor from hammer marks. Start hammering the nail in, then slide the cork between the nail and the floor, continue hammering then remove the cork and finish with a nail punch. Might work and cheaper than a nail gun :wink:

Paul

 

[AndyBoyd]

yep, yep makes sense

What type of nails would be best, the ones with the smallest head I guess, hmm wonder what they are called in Italy - our local hardware store here has everything out back so you need to ask for everything at the counter, mind you they are getting used to me popping in with my dictionary under my arm - they've even given me an account I can pay at the end of the month - didn't know anyone did that these days for private clients

 

[Jake]

I think you'd be better off with a nail gun - the nails can be thinner guage and the heads practically non-existent (so making much less of a mess of the face of your parquet), and a damn sight faster - that's going to be a lot of nailing!

Could you hire one?

 

[Colin C]

I think you'd be better off with a nail gun - the nails can be thinner guage and the heads practically non-existent (so making much less of a mess of the face of your parquet), and a damn sight faster - that's going to be a lot of nailing!

Could you hire one?

Also you will not have the problem of the peices moving when you are nailiing them with nail gun.
I have seen it done and hopefully i will be doing my living room with some free parquet [-o< , you would not do it any other way

 

[Jake]

I loaded up my shed a month or so ago with 100m2 of (what looks like) wenge parquet, to go down in our living rooms. Gorgeous stuff.

The modern way of laying it doesn't use nails at all, just the glue.

 

[Colin C]

I loaded up my shed a month or so ago with 100m2 of (what looks like) wenge parquet, to go down in our living rooms. Gorgeous stuff.

The modern way of laying it doesn't use nails at all, just the glue.

Jake you lucky so and so
With the flooring it does depend on what type of parquet is be laid as I was talking about 6mm stuff but if it is the full blocks #-o then yes you just use glue
Ps Jake has it go bitchamin on the back, if it has there is on need to clean it all off as you can get a modern glue that can be use on it .
The firm I get alot of work from repair floor to and use it.
http://www.chauncey.co.uk/floors/sikabond.htm Its the Lecol :wink: :-$

 

[Jake]

Jake you lucky so and so

Yeah, great Ebay steal. £10 per sq m, and it is just fantastic - beautiful chocolate colour and amazing figured grain on a high percentage of blocks. From an old school in Darlington, apparently - boy they didn't skimp in those days (although I guess it was probably cheap then too, as we (the English) wouldn't have paid for it properly).

With the flooring it does depend on what type of parquet is be laid as I was talking about 6mm stuff but if it is the full blocks #-o then yes you just use glue

You are quite right - in fact I think what I have is properly called wood-block floor, and shouldn't be called parquet really - but everyone does.

Ps Jake has it go bitchamin on the back, if it has there is on need to clean it all off as you can get a modern glue that can be use on it .
The firm I get alot of work from repair floor to and use it.
http://www.chauncey.co.uk/floors/sikabond.htm Its the Lecol :wink: :-$

Thanks Colin, I'd found that link and was looking at the lecol or some other sika product. Yes, the bitumen can stay where it is, thank god - it's a thin even layer anyway which helps.

 

[AndyBoyd]

So If I'm reading this right the Lecol (Dutch by the look of the labels) can be used without nails on 7mm parquet blocks?

Is it like a contact adhesive?

 

[Jake]

I don't think they are like contact adhesive. More a glorpy latex-based glue I think, spread with notched trowels like tile trowels - at least the sika one I found the instruction sheet for was.

 

[Colin C]

I have not used it yet myself but from what I have seen I think Jake is right.