Flooring for a counter top?

[dennyom]

Hi! I just got a hold of a bunch of 100 year old hardwood flooring salvaged from a tear down. All of it is in good shape on the top side but some of it is roughed up on the edges and and some have split tongues so will need to be cleaned up. Most of it is oak with some of what appears to be maple mixed in. I would like to use it for a new counter top in my work shop. Has any of you done this and how have you fastened the flooring down? I was thinking of 3/4 ply or MDF under lay. Can the flooring be glued to this? Can the flooring be edge glued together and them attached along one long edge to allow for movement of the wood. The counter will be 16' long and about 24" to 28" deep. This will not be a workbench but I may put a grinder, mini lathe, and a drill press on top of it.

 

[Shultzy]

dennyom, seems like a waste of oak to me. I would just use the mdf for the worktop, lipped with the oak if you want to make it pretty, and save the rest for something else.

 

[AndyT]

If I were you I'd use the mdf for the top and use the irreplaceable old oak to make some furniture.

 

[Shultzy]

Great mind think alike Andy :lol:

 

[laird]

What they said.

 

[jimi43]

I got an absolute ton of oak faced engineered flooring...enough to do my kitchen and dining room twice but it had been ripped up by some moron and some had split tongues which went into the actual board.

They would have needed a lot of fiddling to use for flooring and having enough anyway I made a small workstation for my drill press and morticer. Both slide forward to clear the glass sliding door for long bits...

I edged it with some solid oak offcuts I had and it worked out quite nice.

That stuff is even better than the best Birch ply...so it was flat. I just biscuited it together with Titebond Original...

It has survived the winter pretty well.

But if yours is solid oak...I would agree with the other guys...use it on something nice...you may consider a nice workbench more important than furniture though! :wink:

Jim

Jim

 

[Vinny]

I plan to do something similar with solid oak flooring off cuts (new stuff - not 100 yr old) on a computer workstation desktop, just needs running through a p/t to take the grooving off the back. The plan is to cut them to 8" lengths and then "tile" onto 18mm mdf, titebond them down then screw through from underneath to properly fix. As the tiles will be small i'm hoping (gambling) that there will be little or no movement.

Vinny