Floorboard gap filling

[beardo_uk]

Hi all,
New to the forum and resonably new to woodworking. Lots of repair/filling work in my old house, and have made a few pieces of furniture so far. I've just moved house and am setting up a small workshop in the garage as opposed to doing everything on a workmate in my front garden!! Looking forward to picking up tips and ideas from the more experienced members. I'll post a few of my completed projects up for some cretique at some point, but until then I have a question about refinishing exposed pine floorboards

After pulling up the carpets I have found my new house has decent condition floorboards. Can't really afford the cost of laying engineered/RW flooring right now so have decided to have a go at refinishing. I was wondering about people's experiences (if any) with gap filling? Specifically using pine slivers to fill gaps (found a few results with search, but nothing that recent). I'd preferably like some contrast between the joins, but as these are of varying sizes and I'm not inclined to lift the boards at this time, I'd like to just get the gaps filled in the most efficient way. Are pine slivers the way to go, or is sanding dust/filler (or off-the -helf flooring filler) more asthetically pleasing and/or effective?
Cheers, Tom

 

[Parquet Dave]

Pine Slivers are the way to go. Off the shelf fillers such as Bona and Unika are like a coloured mastic, and would work out very expensive for a full floor filling the longitudinal gaps, and in all honesty the end result would be questionable.
The resin and dust would work out cheaper but over time I expect would work loose and again the end result would be questionable.

If you intend to make your own slivers then you would be better to buy a reclaimed pine floor boards as if you buy new soft wood they will stand out much lighter and look wrong.

Hope that helps