Tongue and groove troubles

[5030tinkerer]

Is there some trick to getting tongue and groove porch boards to lock in? I picked up a bunch of 1x4 pressure treated t&g lumber for my front porch thinking I would capitalize on the warm (30's...) weather the other day. Trouble is, the boards refuse to lock tightly together. I even used a ratcheting strap made especially for drawing hardwood flooring together. This ratchet is likely good for close to 1000 pounds, yet the boards continue to leave a perhaps 1/8" gap between them. Looking at the endgrain of 'connected' boards reveals that the tongue could definitely travel further into the groove. So far I've tried sheer force via the ratcheting strap, force via a mallet, lubricating the tongue side with hard floor wax, and even a choice word or two. Nothing has helped.

Has anyone else ever run into this? Is the cold weather the trouble?

 

[MrJimi]

I have never installed that type of wood BUT !! I did install 36 sheets of tongue 4' X 8' 3/4 plywood. Your joints have to be perfectly clean, I used a air hose and blower and a piece of scrap to bump them in with a sledge hammer. I pre-drilled all my sheets and glued them with a wood glue and screwed them with 2" screws. I have a wood floor that is like concrete. I think my largest gap may be about the size of the thickness of a dime. Take your time and get it right
and the end grains may have to be square cut. try putting a square on them and see what they look like
Jim

 

[Logan]

You can nail down your first board then rip another board and use the matching side to fit either the tongue or groove, then place it against your second (to be installed board). Then you can use a small sledge hammer to hammer it into place without damaging the to be installed board. Only hammer on your ripped scrap board. It's a two man job to hit it, hold, and hammer a nail into it.

Pressure treated wood around here is notoriously wet and your boards may not be dry to use yet. If that's the case waiting for it to dry it would be my next step. If it is dry you might shave the tongue with a small plane lightly.

You can rent a tool that is made for installing the stuff. It uses a hammer to drive a nail or staple into the board at an angle. I have seen one used once a few years ago but have never used one myself. If step one above doesn't push the two boards together then the rental tool probably will not work well either.

The only wood like that I have installed was four inch pine wood flooring inside an older home. It was completely dry and was a hard job to get that completely tight. Pine also moves a lot with humidity changes. I don't think I could ever get pressure treated pine to snug up completely and stay that way indoors, much less outside. Unless there really is a trick to it I don't think anyone else can either. I think sometime during the year you're going to see the joints. I've seen some pine flooring with a slight bevel on the edges so it looks like you left the joint on purpose.

 

[rtdiggr]

There is probably to much moisture in the wood, you can leave it sit or if you have to do it now you can lightly plane down the groove side.
And like Jim said make sure there is nothing interfering with the tight fit.
Shane

 

[MrJimi]

Shane, from reading your reply, I remember nailing PT wood with a hammer and the PT would squish out like a spray, very messy stuff.
be careful
Jim

 

[RedDirt]

I agree with everything said thus far. Logan's method is the most common approach with a T&G scrap and sledge hammer but you should have the tongue as the free/open edge so you place a toenail through the tongue into the joist (or sub floor). The nail must be at a low enough angle so that it does not obstruct the groove of the next board. Use a counter sink to set the head into the corner of the tongue.

Another method we use tighten-up boards is to take the corner of a heavy framing chisel or flat bar, bevel toward the board, pound it into the joist and use it as a pry lever. Pry against a length of groove ripping, like with pounding the board in with a sledge, so you don't ruin the virgin tongue. Sometimes you need to lift the edge of the board slightly to get the chisel/bar far enough in to gain good purchase. Sometimes the pry is used in conjunction with hammer blows or pipe clamps.

If occasional holes in your finished floor are acceptable, or the holes can be filled, you can screw a 2x4 into a joist (through the finished flooring) to hold the fixed end of a pipe clamp. If working on a deck and you've started from an open edge you can add pipe and couplers to your pipe clamps.

On very tough to fit spots we been known to take a groove scrap and toenail (with a headed nail) at the tough to fit area then drive the toenailed scrap with a sledge. The toe nail eliminates bounce-back. Then when your T&G board is nailed in place you'll need to cats-paw the scrap piece out. If you have to use this method more than rarely then you either have a moisture problem or a mis-milling problem.

Cut two pieces 12 to 24 inches long and check that the milling matches. Mis-milling is unusual but it does happen.

If you continue to have problems take a representative sample of your boards back to your supplier and see what he recommends.

Worst case scenario is you'll have to do some re-milling yourself. Best done with a table saw if you don't have a matched T&G cutter for a shaper or big router on a table. Easiest re-milling fix may be one pass on the table saw, widening the groove with a dado head and the board held vertical and tight to the fence with a fingerboard (sideways hold-down).

 

[Red55]

Red Dirt remindered me of a trick I've used before but it was attaching warp oak flooring to 3/4 ply, I cut two pieces lenghwise at about a 30 degree angle. I would screw the first piece to the plywood and drive the second piece into the wedge between the screwed down piece and the flooring I was trying to attach. The cut edges would slid and push the flooring together. Do not use drywall screws they will snap I used deckmate screws. I suspect your pressure-treated is way too wet and maybe mis milled. If it is wet you will have gaps when it drys out. Try to wear gloves and kneel on something besides the pt decking. You might be able to screw the wedge to the flooring joist. Good Luck -Ed

 

[5030tinkerer]

Thanks for all of the great ideas, guys.

Jim's comment about gaps no larger than dime has me thinking - my gaps are about a dime's width, perhaps a dime and a half. While the tongue clearly could go further in the groove, the resultant 'look' that I am ending up with isn't at all bad, just not what I expected.
Ultimately, though, I have to remember that this is a covered, sloped outward front porch in south central Iowa (think freeze/thaw cycles). I had hoped that the spacing would be small enough for the paint to span, thus keeping any water out of the groove. Perhaps since it is treated, though, this is not something I will have to worry about at all. Thoughts?

The boards themselves are very, very dry. Heck, if they were wet, that might make for some lube to help the fit out! <grin> There is even a sticker on them indicating that they were kiln dried AFTER treatment. I'm thinking that I'll end up doing some re-milling work to get everything to line up. I am concerned, though, about losing structural integrity of the joint. One thing I did notice is that the tongue on all the boards bevels very slightly towards the top and bottom of each board (sort of a V-shaped tongue). Perhaps maintaining that slight bevel and shaving off a 64th or so of material with a fine toothed saw blade will clean things up while still allowing a tight fit.

Probably the first step won't be that, though. Remembering those ratchet straps that I picked up and the fact that the nylon webbing has 'stretch' in it, plans are to hop outside, put a load on two of those straps, press a helper board up against the already squeezed boards, and use a large sledge to 'help' convince the boards to pop together. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks again for all the ideas and Happy New Year!

 

[MrJimi]

Wait till they shrink after about one year
dime and a half, Hmm would that be .15 cents
and my sheets are 4'X8', they dont bend
Jim

 

[B8FISH]

We have done a lot of T&G using recycled pine--find that the "reversible" type of pipe clamp works great. Instead of clamping together you are using the clamp to spread--in this case--to push the last board onto the previous tongue. We usually put spacers in between the joists to help stiffen the floor and just work off of those with the fixed end of the pipe clamp (not sure if this what was meant in the above post) and using the "screw" end to get the boards snug--making sure to use a scrap piece.