Repair tongue and groove

[Vboon01]

Hello

We are restoring floorboards from 1860s. Some boards are cracked - should we remove and replace with other heritage sourced boards or repair and fill? They are tongue in groove and we don’t want to disrupt entire floor.

Also - water based or polyurethane varnish?

 

[Cubist]

Depends. Even very long and extensive cracks in floorboards may be capable of being repaired in situ. In fact that's preferable because the act of removing them can frequently induce additional and perhaps more significant damage. A couple of photos of the damaged boards would be helpful.

 

[Gothichome]

Yes, repair in place, the boards will be brittle! Attempting to remove them will cause more grief than you want to get into. Boards that old are probably an inch and a half thick or even thicker. The crack may be sucked back together by drilling at a steeper angle from one side of the crack to the other. Thin screws can then be used to suck the gap together using a glue in the crack. At this point you have two options sink the screw heads below level and fill or depending on your faith in the glue used, remove the screws and once again fill.

 

[Vboon01]

Thanks. We took some photos of the areas.

There’s are some areas where they have cut out a square but floorboards remain, also some areas missing Floorboards and some cracked boards.

 

[LadyArowana]

Tobey has a whole section of DIY guides on his website https://newellwoodworks.co.uk/ . Are you intending to cover most of the floor with carpets? We had our floors done, but actually very little is visible because we have rugs/ carpets. I knew that would be the case so didn’t get overly invested in making them 100% perfect

 

[Lacan07]

Thanks. We took some photos of the areas.

There’s are some areas where they have cut out a square but floorboards remain, also some areas missing Floorboards and some cracked boards.

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For the large gaps you use pine 'slithers' - glue them in with wood glue then shave them down with a sharp chisel before sanding. For the rest you can use any wood filler, some use 'Lecol', but along the length it has a habit of falling out eventually as the boards expand and contract. It should look good though once sanded and varnish. Its all part of the charm.

 

[eezageeza]

Are you sure those boards are as old as the house? Some of them look suspiciously uniform and narrow (and modern, or at least not 150+ years old). What dimensions are they, and what type of wood?

It may be that replacement boards are readily available, and if you're not preserving genuinely old timbers then simply replacing the damaged bits might be a more pragmatic soultion.

 

[Cubist]

Thanks for the photos. Much/all of the damage is the direct result of people trying to secure access to the underfloor void - presumably to install cabling or water services of one sort or another. They have done this merely by running a circular saw along the mid point line of a joist and used a pry-bar to lift the boards out. In doing so, and in part because the boards were surface nailed with steel brads, some of the boards have cracked and broken along or near the tongue and or groove as they were levered up from the joists. The boards themselves are fairly common and you should not have any difficulty finding reclaimed product to fill the missing sections - just be sure to get accurate dimensions for width and depth and of course the depth/height of the tongues and grooves. The boards showing signs of splits can be repaired with some good quality glue and a few wedges to begin with and then filled and sanded afterwards if needed. Large gaps can be closed with with pieces of comparable wood cut to size and glued into position and slivers can be made or bought as @Lacan07 suggests to close narrow gaps between the boards.

 

[Vboon01]

Are you sure those boards are as old as the house? Some of them look suspiciously uniform and narrow (and modern, or at least not 150+ years old). What dimensions are they, and what type of wood?

It may be that replacement boards are readily available, and if you're not preserving genuinely old timbers then simply replacing the damaged bits might be a more pragmatic soultion.

The only section that might be newer is the kitchen as there was a fire and it’s lower but the rest have the original nails that are hand forged nails which corresponds to the date of the house. We are lucky in the fact that these have been covered and left for 50 plus years. Also in the antipodes (Oz) with a dry climate that might have helped preserve them.

 

[Vboon01]

Are you sure those boards are as old as the house? Some of them look suspiciously uniform and narrow (and modern, or at least not 150+ years old). What dimensions are they, and what type of wood?

It may be that replacement boards are readily available, and if you're not preserving genuinely old timbers then simply replacing the damaged bits might be a more pragmatic soultion.

150 mm x 22 mm - they are Baltic pine

 

[Vboon01]

Tobey has a whole section of DIY guides on his website https://newellwoodworks.co.uk/ . Are you intending to cover most of the floor with carpets? We had our floors done, but actually very little is visible because we have rugs/ carpets. I knew that would be the case so didn’t get overly invested in making them 100% perfect

Yea they will be polished and visible