Hardwood Floors - Contractor Blog: Wayne Lee

Monday, June 17, 2013

Installing Inlays into a Wood Floor Without Jigs: Step 1

By Avi Hadad

In my last post I mentioned using screws on a medallion installation. To clarify for those who are beginners: When you make a medallion you can leave some pieces (“knockouts”) out—they are not glued to your plywood backer. When you install the medallion you can spread the glue, drop the medallion in place and screw through the voids to secure the medallion down. That works much better than putting weight on the medallion until the glue sets. Then you glue your knockout pieces, and you’re done. Some manufacturers offer knockout pieces in their medallions. I have found screws work great, especially on large medallions.

Anyway, back to my last blog promise: breaking down the steps of making an inlay and explaining the technical process. I’d like to say thank you to Lenny Hall, who inspired the inlay work on this floor [Note from the editor: You can see some examples of Hall’s Floor of the Year winning floors here and here].

Step 1: Making the Leaves
I took leaves I found on the property of the house. I copied them onto paper, sized the photocopy so that not all leaves were the same size, and saved one original copy of each leaf just in case:

Avi Hadad Leaf Inlay Step 1.JPG

Then using carbon paper, I traced the images on wood. Since the “canvas” for the inlay was rift and quartered white oak I decided to use several exotics for the leaves for contrast (in their more common names known as yellowheart, jatoba, bubinga, rosewood and padauk). Each wood had different grain and hardness. That made the process very interesting, to say the least.

So, now we have a piece of wood with a pencil drawing of a leaf (or whatever you work on). You should have your drawing reflect the petals (meaning we are not just tracing the outside of the leaf, but the inside lines as well). You should pay attention to the color and grain on your work piece. If you don’t know what it will look like with finish on it, rub some alcohol on it. Stay away from heavy figure, knots and sap. Now cut it on the scroll saw. You need to cut each petal individually. If you don’t and take the easy way out by cutting the whole leaf out of one piece, the grain will be in the wrong direction, like this one:

Avi Hadad Leaf Inlay Step 2.JPG

So, depending on the leaf, you may end up with five or more small pieces of wood for each leaf. I can hear you say, oh yes, okay I can do that, what’s next? I can cut wood with no problem!

Slow down, dear. Understand that each time you cut a petal you lose, I repeat, you lose the thickness of the blade from the drawing on your work piece. If you just cut the pencil line and try to fit the pieces together, it will not work. By “it will not work,” I mean a gap of 1/64” (.396 mm) is not good enough. Your tolerances at this level should be close to none. So, you can either cut each petal, then shape it on a little stationary belt sander, or you can double-bevel-cut the pieces. A double-bevel-cut is when you cut two pieces of wood at the same time. Your saw is angled, and when you’re done, the top piece fits perfectly into the bottom one.

Anyway, now you have all the petals cut. In my last post we had a photo of a six-piece leaf. Most of the other leaves were made of seven pieces. When you cut the petals, remember to watch for grain direction. Unlike a piece of furniture, which is really close to the eye, a floor is not. So, unless the grain is really pronounced, you’ll be fine even if your grain is all over the place (but if I check out your floor, I will see it—don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone).

Let’s go back a step to cutting. A lot of the leaves have sharp points and curves. It is easier to start the cut at a point. If you finish a cut at a point on a petal you will probably not get a crisp point. You will also just tear through that point as well. Now what? Put numbers on your petals. Have a clean, organized place to store all your cut parts until you’re ready for the next step. I put about 46-48 leaves into that floor I made. Originally I made about 55 leaves. That’s 55 leaves multiplied by six or seven petals for each. That’s 330 to 385 cut pieces. That’s right, now we are getting somewhere. That somewhere is respect. Yes, I said it. Respect. Now you’re wandering around with hundreds of loose unassembled mini, tiny wooden pieces. Walking around proudly looking for people to admire your obsessive, foolish creation. Guess what? No one cares, Mr. Peacock. Focus please, because you still need to cut the branches!

For the branches I chose rosewood lumber that had the grain lines and the color I wanted. I free-handed the branches. In other words, took a piece of lumber and scrolled through it, wiggling the piece a bit so that the branches had a rugged edge (note that the test piece on the bottom right—the one where the entire leaf is cut out from one piece of wood—did not make it into the final floor):

Avi Hadad Leaf Inlay Step 4.JPG

That rugged edge will make life hard when you need to fit it into the floor later. Go with the grain. If you go across it, you will have a very fragile inlay piece. It will most likely break before you are done cutting.

Okay, now we’re ready for "sand-shading" so the pieces look like this:

Avi Hadad Leaf Inlay Step 3.JPG

How about we stop here and break this down to several blog posts? Great, I will post one every week until we are done with this topic. Thanks for reading, and apologies for the bad jokes. I must have been in the presence of Don Conner in past years.

Posted By Avi Hadad At 9:04 AM • Comments (0)

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Thoughts from Memphis: Thank Your Mentors

By Wayne Lee

Most of the time I can sit down and just write, that and talking have always come easy to me; but this time it has been writer’s block.

Wayne Lee Dick Hammond NOFMA wood flooring installation school in Memphis

Wayne Lee Dick Hammond NOFMA wood flooring installation school in Memphis

Last week a team of us were at the BPI/NWFA class, and it was a blast, along with some hard work. It brought back some memories that have been lost in the back of my heart and mind. Take a look at this photo of me and Mr. Dick Hammond from 15-18 years ago; truth is I do not recall the exact date but it was at a NOMFA class in Memphis. Maybe that is what set the wheels moving again: being in Memphis (like I had been so many times before) doing one more class with great friends.

My point is: We all start someplace, and that someplace can lead us down a path that we may or may not have picked for ourselves. When it was my time to fall under the direction of mentors like Dick Hammond, it did not seem real. At that time it was not my dream to become a “floor man” but learn more about wood so that as I repaired the units for a real flooring contractor, they worked like they should. The strange thing was that fell in, like, real fast with the flooring.

So now I have taken a new path, and as I learn more about the mill and all that it has to offer, I am still using the knowledge gained from some of the best in their fields. I never dreamed folks would want to read my stories from my life on the blog, but you did, and I say thank you for taking the time to read them. Today you all read the HF Contractor Blogs from Avi and Scott … Passing the torch is something that can be interesting and, at the same time, sad. To think that “us” older guys and gals now are the ones to offer the younger folks words of wisdom is just a blessing. I took a long hard look at my face in this photo, then looked at my face now; it has the lines and gray like my mentor’s. In the photo it has the look of wonder and joy, while today’s face has the look of joy and confidence.

So as we get older and, with the grace of God, wiser, we need to remember our youth. This is my blog of thank you to so many who gave their time but most of all their heart so that the young guy in the photo can become more than a flooring contractor: a floor man. It all starts with someone, and for me it started with Mr. Hammond, a man who saw more in me than I still see in myself today. He gave of himself to teach me the craft of understanding… Understanding how so many flooring contractors pour all they have into a wood floor… Understanding the need to be the best service tech I could be, not for myself but for the folks who depend on the tools to provide for their families… Understanding that love of a craft is more than a job, it is putting your name on the work we do.

Galen Fitzel teaching in Memphis.jpg

Galen Fitzel is one more I need to thank (that’s him above in the red shirt during last week’s school); he is passing the torch this July when he retires. During 40 years with 3M, he has given his skills and knowledge of a thing we call paper. Just think about all that goes into a grit, how it cuts, how it does what it does. It leaves a mark in the wood, and that mark will tell the story. So with Galen, I see the need of leaving a mark in the lives of others. That mark can be deep and harmful, or it can be fine and improve the qualities of a person. If we shortcut and skip grits, we see the lack of commitment to our craft. In life, if we shortcut and skip over people, well, it can show our lack of concern and compassion. What grit we use and how we use that knowledge makes for a sweet floor, but again, how we share our knowledge with others can make the next generation’s skills last a lifetime. He always wanted to give of his knowledge, and it was real clear to me that his “cut” was always to improve the craft or lives of the folks he came in contact with. Thanks for 40 years of making the right cut and giving of your skills to so many. Enjoy your retirement, Mr. Fitzel, aka Dr. Wood.

On a personal note, I have the greatest parents in the world. My dad worked his back to death to provide for his family; he was not a flooring contractor but a truck driver in the city of Chicago. Something not many know: Daddy only had one eye, the other was lost in a accident when he was young. Think of how hard it was to drive a 45-foot-long truck in Chicago; even so he always won safety awards for his driving. His work ethic and never-give-up attitude left a huge impression on me! Just when I felt like a job was going to kick me hard, I would call Daddy and just talk to him. He always had time to talk, and because he lost his daddy when he was in his young teens, he always had the right words to share at the right time. Dad started me off with tools and using my hands. I have two older brothers who were book smart, but Daddy knew that my talents were with my hands; he gave me the skills I have today to work a wrench and swing a hammer. Mom, on the other hand, had to use a hammer to get me to do my homework or sit still in class.

My Mom is the best! She is tough as a pine knot and never let three boys get the upper hand. Back in the day when moms stayed home and took care of the family, well, she took care of us and the other kids on our block. We lived on a dead-end street in the middle of nothing back then. Yes, in the western suburbs of Chicago 40 years ago we lived in the country. Mom would watch the kids for the other families during the day; she was the supernanny of her day. Mom is the rock of our family. She knew what it took to build a family and a keep life straight when it was not. My Mom made it clear that how you build a strong family and keep it strong all stared with the foundation. When we started our business here, those words of a strong foundation and where it all started rang clear. They both are up in years, and if you follow me on Facebook, you know Mom is fighting cancer right now, but even in her battle she still has a strong faith. Her foundation is what will keep her straight even when it is not.

Bottom line to this blog is: Learn from the mentors; use their knowledge. Most of all, never ever, ever stop sharing the skills you have and the knowledge you have. Like so many before us, become a mentor to others. Thank them when you can, and remember.

Posted By Wayne Lee At 4:26 AM • Comments (10)

Tuesday, June 04, 2013

A Second Strategy

By Scott Avery

Many years ago I remember being really behind in a high school tennis match and expecting to lose the match. Two games before I would have lost (best two of three sets), it finally clicked to me that the guy I was playing had a terrible backhand. I started serving exclusively to his backhand and hitting everything on that side of the court. Not long after that, I ended up winning the match. I was originally planning on coming into the match just going head to head based on hitting power and foot speed. This guy had a great forehand and was fast, so that strategy was not going to work.

Fast-forward to my life now: If you ask me, my joke is that I wish I didn’t even own saws, because that’s how much I love sanding and refinishing. It didn’t start out that way, because I was thoroughly convinced I would build a career off installing the most elaborate floors in town. I spent the greater part of six years trying to convince every customer to let me build custom fireplace headers, install medallions, etc… Once the market went into the toilet, I realized finally that installing wood floors has a few drawbacks compared to refinishing:

If you put in the wood floor, then you become liable for the performance of that wood floor afterwards. Considering how complicated the environmental factors are that affect a floor, this leaves you vulnerable to many things, especially if the customer hires a lawyer and decides you’re a bad guy. Add onto this that the number of wood species in demand increases almost every month and that the emergence of new research on their behavioral characteristics doesn’t match their surge in demand, and you have a bad scenario.
I have yet to be able to be as accurate in predicting installation times (hourly) in residential markets as I am at predicting the hours required to refinish a floor. Any variable could arise during an installation. What if additional acclimation time is required on the day you show up to start an install versus what you expected? I once had landscapers pressure-wash a house and force water through the slider and cup my new install, which set me back on time. That’s just one of many stories, though. Maybe someone has a better approach, but I have yet to find a way to make every install equally as profitable when compared with refinishing.
Any carpenter with an eye for making tight cuts can install a wood floor. It may take them longer, but if you give a person a few saws and enough time they can usually turn out an install that looks good (if they care). It’s not likely that the same person can jump on my sanders and produce an equal quality sand job to what I can do. In addition, my sanding setup costs over $10K to buy, so my competition will be far reduced based on startup costs. Yes, I can hear people complaining about the Craigslist guys as I write this, but trust me, their split drum and buffer just cannot match what I can do any day of the week:

Our industry has lots of niche markets that are yet to be fully developed. Whether it is UV-cured finishes in commercial restaurants to becoming a master of black-stained maple, all is possible. With enough effort, someone can become the expert for that niche. We tend to be creatures of habit, yet the most enthusiastic contractors from convention are always telling me about new stuff they are doing and how profitable the work is. In my opinion, their enthusiasm is from financial peace of mind and then innovation and reward.

Hope all is well, my friends, and I’ll keep you posted on some new endeavors in a few weeks. Stay in touch, and I’d love to get an e-mail from you all sometime. Thanks for reading.

Posted By Scott Avery At 9:33 PM • Comments (4)

Monday, June 03, 2013

How to Install Inlays into a Wood Floor Without Jigs

By Avi Hadad

When you participate in a discussion, realize that everyone comes to the table at a different level of knowledge. I remember a medallion demo at an NWFA workshop last year. I helped Frank Kroupa and Bob Goldstein install a medallion (well, I was doing all the work while they were standing shouting instructions at me). I explained to the 37 students who attended that workshop how I used screws in a medallion installation. One of the students asked me why I used screws on a medallion. He thought I was face-screwing the medallion. My point? A lot of us look at other people’s floors and we don’t realize what went into the creation of the floor. The more educated you are, the more you’ll understand and appreciate the technicality of custom floors. I separate technicality from art/design. One floor could be stunning and so easy to make. The other could be so boring, but what a technical challenge for the installer. The real deal for me is when a floor is both.

My first custom floor had ¼” thick (6.35 mm) leaves and branches I put in it. I scrolled the leaves one petal at a time, sand-shaded each one, assembled them, carved them into the floor and put in the stem as a final touch. In this post I’ll show you how to take a free form and put it in a floor without guides or jigs. Here are my steps:

1) Decide where you want the inlay. Make sure the customer agrees, and get it in writing.

2) Trace your inlay with a fine pencil or a marking knife:

Avi Wood floor leaf inlay 1.jpg

3) Use a plunge router with inlay bits to cut out the cavity, stopping just shy of the line.

4) Use hand tools to do the final clean-up and work to the line:

Avi Wood floor leaf inlay 2.jpg

5) Dry-fit your leaf. Do not push it all the way in. it needs to be snug but not too tight, or it’ll break when you tap it in:

Avi Wood floor leaf inlay 3.JPG

6) Apply yellow glue to the floor and walls of the cavity.

7) Carefully tap your leaf into the floor using a block.

8) The leaf should be a hair proud of the floor:

Avi Wood floor leaf inlay 4.JPG

Sand it so it is flush with the floor.

Reading this, you might think it is easy and quick. It is, if you know what you are doing and you’ve done it before. There are so many woodworking techniques and skills that go into every step, and I will share them in the next post. I will explain and analyze every step of that process. Thank you for reading, and I hope this will trigger someone’s interest into making a special floor. In my next post we’ll go hard-core technical.

Posted By Avi Hadad At 8:58 AM • Comments (12)

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Three Huge Mistakes to Stop Making!

By Scott Avery

Sometimes you get a little lost in figuring out what people want to hear about in writing the HF Contractor Blog. I tend to notice that posts that get a lot of comments and reactions are tethered to a controversial subject, sort of like the inspector post by Kevin Mullany or anything about Lumber Liquidators. Being controversial is not my style, and being right on a forum doesn’t matter when you’re arguing at someone from a keyboard whom you may have never met.

Time is the one variable that helps or cripples business owners in the industry. You cannot create more time, only influence how effectively you use it. I want to give you a very unconventional perspective on the three biggest ways to waste your time. I feel very qualified to speak about this because I have gone the conventional and unconventional route in building my business, and I will tell you that conventional rules of business building are for sheep in the Internet age.

1) Excessive Networking: Several years ago I probably invested 20 hours a week at networking events and having coffee with people in the industry hoping to broaden my circle and increase my referrals. From designers to builders, I was a human Rolodex and knew people from all sorts of organizations and business groups. I was thumbing through a stack of old business cards the other day:

Scott Avery Biz cards.jpg

Of the ones I threw away from the picture, I counted nine businesses that either filed bankruptcy or shut their doors just beforehand. I have lost touch with about 80 percent of the rest of the people from the stack, and I doubt they could point me out in a room if someone said find me. Interestingly, I have personally met everyone in this batch of cards more than once. I did make a few good connections, but the value was in the friendship and knowledge I gained from people, not the referrals. Why? Because people are very busy and unless are a customer, then they will not always remember you or clearly understand your business or when to refer you.

2) Home and Garden Shows: I have done plenty of home remodeling shows over the early years. I used to build the fancy floor, stand on my feet for 10 hours a day with a smile, and talk with people about everything under the sun. The real fun stuff was when some engineer would come over and start grilling you to test your knowledge with no intent to buy, while the interested people behind him waited almost long enough to talk to you but walked away. I had a fancy bid sign-up sheet and getting someone to sign the sheet alone was a task. Even if they signed up, only about 5 percent of those leads turned into jobs. In fact, I would generally manage to make about double my costs after the show, all for 60 hours of work and really tired feet. After awhile I figured that if I invested 60 hours into writing online content or working on some other targeted form of marketing I could make more money. In fact, I will go on record to say that generally if you go about it properly you can make 10 times more money from marketing online than any home show in existence if you are a contractor.

3) Online Forums: Forums may not count as a business builder technically, but I see them as a way to increase your knowledge, which helps your sales process. I cannot count on all my fingers and toes how many pissing matches I have witnessed on forums. It can range from people working to humiliate each other to others seeming to be in search of a trophy for being the smartest guy in the room. I can bet you that many argument “winners” on a forum are also hurting in the bank account or personal relationships department. Some of these people will construct 600-word responses to people and complain they don’t have time to write a blog. Go figure…

You can always make more money, but you cannot make more time in this life. Invest your time in things that enrich your life instead of your ego, and you won’t have to invest in blood pressure medications and Xanax like when your business is out of control.

Posted By Scott Avery At 9:27 AM • Comments (16)

Monday, May 20, 2013

Making Your Own Wood Filler

By Avi Hadad

There are several scenarios where you just have to make your own wood filler:

There is no filler available for the wood you are using, for example, yellowheart.
Your wood will change color drastically once exposed to sunlight, for example, jatoba.
Filling top-nailed floors.

In this scenario I installed a solid top-nailed 5/16-inch red oak floor. I mixed dust from my 100-grit edging with a binder, wood flour cement. Several manufacturers make that product, and they all work really well. You can use dust from your edger or any fine dust (from your Trio or a multi-disc sander):

Avi red oak wood dust for making filler.jpg

Avi red oak wood dust for making filler.jpg

The binder is very flammable. You need to have the proper respirator and make sure you turn off all ignition sources like pilot lights. Pour the binder onto a mound of dust on the floor:

Avi wood dust for making filler 2.jpg

Using putty knives, mix the two until you get a consistent paste, and then you are ready to go. You will have to add more binder as you work your way through the floor:

Avi wood dust for making filler 3.jpg

Add your binder onto the already filled areas. Once dry, this recipe is great. It will not shrink or dish out while sanding.

You can also make small quantities when you need to fill the floor around inlays, like I’m doing here:

Avi wood dust for making filler in exotics.jpg

Avi wood dust for making filler in exotics.jpg

Mixing your own filler is time consuming. It is much easier and faster to use the pre-mixed fillers. But, sometimes you just have to make your own. Knowing when and how to apply this will guarantee you a better finished floor.

Posted By Avi Hadad At 9:13 AM • Comments (0)

Monday, May 13, 2013

Innovate or Perish?

By Scott Avery

I have to say that wood floor contracting is a nice business to market. It is simple because you educate the customer honestly and then deliver a product accordingly. Being competitive, if your company is composed of true craftsmen, only requires good salesmanship and consistent marketing efforts. Retail brands do not have as much of an advantage, so they rely more on crafty marketing strategy to differentiate.

Recently I read a New York Times article about brands pushing the envelope in order to “go viral”. To be memorable in something like the cola market you have to come up with ads that border on stupid or offensive to keep your brand on people’s mind. It’s not really marketing with a target audience at that point, but blind advertising hoping to gain traction. Hardwood floor contractors like us, however, can go so many directions with our business, from high-end commercial installations to doing modest refinishes in the residential market. We can specialize and grow a powerful name within a niche based on our service. If you like Dr. Pepper, then go to Wal-Mart and you can also get Dr. Thunder. Pretty much tastes the same at a 50% discount. Knocking off quality in sanding and finishing or installations is not as simple as mimicking the ingredients of a cola (especially if listing the ingredients to make the product is an FDA requirement).

Importantly success these days requires contractors and manufacturers in our business have to work both smarter AND harder and throw out traditional approaches to business. It is no longer enough to say “I work by referral only” or “we have the BEST product in the market” if someone comes into your market and gets good at marketing and has a quality product. Before you know it, they’ll be knocking off your customers left and right, and you’ll be the one closing your business. I have witnessed this and heard stories from colleagues in different states of this happening.

That leaves a business with two choices: innovate or perish. Look at WD Flooring and how they developed a new custom line of flooring and they’ve done quite well with the brand. That becomes a new revenue stream and allows them to use the additional revenue for increased marketing efforts, product development, etc… WD is just one example of what innovation can do for a business in our industry, but is a good model for always trying a new approach.

Here is my million-dollar question for my industry colleagues: Do you prefer prosperity or comfort? It is more comfortable to keep using the same finish, the same sander, and the same strategy of letting people remember to call you when they need a floor? It is more comfortable to not reach out your hand and make a friend at the distributor if you always see people as competition?

I want to default to this YouTube video of Byron Pitts:

He is now an international reporter for CBS and was illiterate until age twelve and stuttered until his junior year in college. To become an esteemed journalist he had to overcome these problems and do something really uncomfortable: fix a problem by communicating and asking for help. What if you met three new experts in the next month just by doing a little research on LinkedIn? Instead of just hitting the button to link to them, what if you just picked up a phone for a five-minute phone call or sent a personal e-mail introducing yourself? It’s not as comfortable as simply clicking a button, but it just may be that spark that puts a wind in your sails, and that is how innovation starts.

Scott Avery operates Modern Tech Floors in Portland, Ore.

Posted By Scott Avery At 10:03 PM • Comments (2)

Getting Stuff Done on the Job Site on the Fly

By Wayne Lee

After reading Avi’s last post about getting stuff done on the job without power tools, it got me to thinking: What things have we done to get the job done?

Let me see how many “things” we used:

Before the dust control units hit the market hard, we use a thing called a “bag,” and the bag had a string to cinch the bag tight, however, if it broke we would unlace a boot string. The Air Jordans worked better, so somehow a shoe from the closet in the back bedroom would be missing a shoelace…

One time an edger bag had been left on the last job and the extra one had a hole, so hello, pillowcase, along with the Air Jordan shoelace … worked for the day.

A big storm rolled in and killed the juice to the job, yay, we go home… not! We got out the manual nail gun. That was a drag, but it got installed.

The working belt for the big machine just wore out and broke, so I went to the truck and got a tie-down strap, then adjusted the hooks to fit around the big machine handles and my big butt. Got it done.

Now this will be the dumb one: We got a flat on the truck at the job. My guys used the jack, took off the tire and, what? The spare was low on air. Not sure how to air it up, they rolled it to the filling station and rolled it back fixed. I said, “Next time, use the compressor in the house. We have an adapter for that.”

Posted By Wayne Lee At 9:56 AM • Comments (0)

Monday, May 06, 2013

How to Use Hand Tools to Perform Tasks Done by Power Tools

By Avi Hadad

It is so common these days to use power tools. For even the shortest, most delicate task in woodworking, we have a power tool designed just for it. Trust me, I know because whenever my dad insists on hand-nailing or anything crazy like that, I run to my van and pull out a pneumatic tool. I think we are so used to power tools that it really affects our workmanship and state of mind. Is it just me, or do you get annoyed when it takes you more than five seconds to go get a nail set and set a nail? Why can’t they make a power nail setter? Funny, I know, but so true. It is important for a floor mechanic to understand basic woodworking skills, like chiseling to a line or using a plane. It comes in handy when your power tool is broken and you need to get something done with just the use of hand tools. Here are a few very simple examples; please feel free to share your own.

Plunging into a Floor at a Straight Line

Let’s say you want to replace a board and you need to cut the end joint straight (something most of us would do using a multi-tool or a router). First, score the floor board with a sharp utility knife or X-Acto-type knife with light strokes. Guide the knife with a steel ruler:

Scoring wood floor surface.jpg

Gradually score the face until you are about 1/8” deep (3.175mm). Then from the scrap side score at an angle into the line. That will create an angled V-shaped groove:

Scored wood floor.jpg

Keep on scoring the straight line until you reach about 3/16” strong (4.762mm). Again, remove the material at an angle cut. Now use a chisel to complete the cut.

Creating a Round-Over, Eased-Edge or Micro-Bevel Profile

Most would use a table saw, a router with a round-over bit and an orbital sander to ease the edge. For a micro-bevel, hold your floor board at waist height on a flat surface. I use the tabletop of my table saw with the blade fully down and the table saw unplugged. Use a block plane to create a micro-bevel on the long edge. If you tear the grain, rotate the piece 180 degrees and plane from the other side.

For eased-edge, use a sanding block to ease that edge.

For a round-over, use the block plane at small increments to create a semi round-over. Then use a folded-up abrasive to round that edge nice, consistent and smooth.

Undercutting Door Jambs

A multi-tool is good for undercutting door jambs ...

Door jamb cut using multi-tool.jpg

... but you can also do this easily with a Japanese-style saw. Place a piece of the flooring next to the door jamb to be cut and guide the saw on top of your hardwood piece:

Door jamb cut using Japan saw.jpg

Take light strokes and listen to the saw. Oftentimes you will hit a nail inside the door casing. Stop cutting, set it and keep on cutting. Unlike your power saw, your hand saw will not work through the nail.

It is good to know how to perform one task in two different ways: using hand tools and power tools. Once you have performed a task using hand tools alone you will have a better understanding of how your power tools work and how the wood responds.

Posted By Avi Hadad At 9:35 AM • Comments (5)

Friday, May 03, 2013

Marketing Tips: Online Reviews

By Scott Avery

The tips that I’ve written about for marketing were basic, but still fundamental for providing a good “footprint” for your business online. A final component that I would really like to discuss revolves around online reviews.

There are a myriad of websites where you can gain online reviews. The three most prevalent review sites would be Angie’s List, Yelp, and Google Places. I’ll try to give a brief impression about my experience with all three and mention pros and cons.

Angie’s List: Some people have a love/hate relationship with this review service. The conundrum of gaining traction on Angie’s List is that subscribers typically use members with reviews and if you have no reviews it is hard to get calls. It will eventually happen, so be patient. The positive side of Angie’s List is that because members have to pay a small fee, the majority are professionals who are serious about their time and generally not into kicking tires for a deal. As a business you cannot pay to be on Angie’s List, but with the right reviews you CAN pay to be featured at the top of search queries. I recently read that only 35% of the Angie’s List revenue comes from subscribers and the other 65% comes from paying for that coveted spot or doing “The Big Deal” (think Groupon). I could go on and on, but whatever you do, make sure you give great service and the Angie’s List subscribers can help pave your path to success.

Yelp: I have mixed feelings about Yelp. It got us an initial start out of the gate, but later turned out to be a haven for hipster wanna-be restaurant critics who need a floor refinished. The client base tends to be a snarky crowd, and because the service is free, attracts a bigger set of deal-seekers. Couple this with the filtering mechanism of Yelp and you’ll find a significant number of your positive reviews getting gobbled up unless reviewers are highly active Yelp users. I wouldn’t rule out Yelp, but your time would be better spent worrying about costumers from other sites if you want to be more of a high-end contractor.

Google reviews: There is less structure to Google reviews than Yelp and Angie’s List. This could be perceived as good or bad, but I like the fact that my reviews have never been filtered, unlike Yelp. The obvious benefit is that the reviews accompany your business profile if you come up in Google Places search results. The only downside, which is minimal, is that reviewers need a Google account.

In my experience, reviews are a final piece of the puzzle. I caution you, though, that building a brand is about the complete picture, so if you want serious business online, your website has to look the part. I recently was thumbing through Luxe magazine, which is for the high-end millionaire crowd. I saw a custom home builder who had paid for a full-page ad (typically for one year $8K and up) and had a very paltry website. There were a few photos that were OK, but the website conveyed the same tired language you hear in construction about caring about quality, being in business for 20 years, etc…

If everyone else is saying the same stuff, then you fall into the crowd and your website needs to differentiate you. Otherwise, you fall into the same vanilla world of contracting and will not be able to command a price for your work. Focus on your reviews, but also focus on your whole brand. Talk to you all next week.

Posted By Scott Avery At 11:02 AM • Comments (3)

Wednesday, May 01, 2013

These Parts DO Grow on Trees

By Wayne Lee

My new plan: sell wood. Boy, do I have sooooooooooooo much to learn about the manufacturing of flooring. The mill (Middle Tennessee Lumber) has a bunch of wood sitting in the yard and my mindset is “just cut it into flooring and let’s sell it.” For a machine company, parts do not grow on trees, but flooring does.

I never put much thought into the fact that raw material has to grow slow, and that the wood has so many steps to be made into flooring. Now, I have been around many mills and had many folks tell me the way it all happens, but until you stand side by side with the folks in the mill and see what goes into the flooring, well, let me do my best to share it with you.

The raw wood is brought to the yard on flatbed trucks (note: uncovered) green as it can be. The folks in the yard have to look at the grade, species, inspect, count footage and decide at that moment where to stack it. Next, flooring is dipped in a huge tank with anti-fungus and mold solution. The plant then stacks it and puts in the stickers to allow air flow between boards, then off to the yard for “air” dry. Now that means it has to get down to 20-25% in the open air with nature doing what it does. If it is a wet season then it takes longer, at best this will take 60-90 days. We like the 60 but this has been a wet season, so we are past that mark already. Each bundle is given a tag of grade, footage, species and date it was brought to the yard. The forklift driver then hits the ends of the wood with a “wax” to reduce the splits in the wood as it dries.

Once it gets to 20-25% air dried, it gets moved to the kiln for drying in the biggest EZ bake oven I have ever seen. In each kiln you will have 70,000 board feet of wood. So the more you have, the more you can make, but the key is your target. In our yard we have six units going all day long, the target moisture content is 8%. That can take longer or go faster with the species, but overall it is the target that tells you that done is done. I call it the EZ bake oven because if you go into one you will start to bake in just seconds. The tech has to go into the kiln and get samples from the bundles and test each sample to see how fast or slow the wood is drying.

So now this is all done, and the wood is ready to be made into flooring … but wait, it has to cool. We have a huge barn where the flooring has to sit for one day to cool and have time to relax from the oven. Once that one day of rest is done, we get right back to work and that wood goes to the rough mill where it is inspected again for grade and species. That person has to walk all day on a track of wood, flipping each board to see which side should be up before it goes to the planers, saws and as fast as you can blink a few times, they have all that done.

The next step is the saws, an “eye” on a computer tells the line which saw to go to and how it should be cut. You want to talk about fast … that thing is fast! The saw rips it into the best yield and size and it is sent around to the folks that stack it all into size and length. They work faster than a chicken on a June bug—no time to over-think or play around. Those new bundles then get moved around to a stage area based on the size and length of the flooring they have set up to run for that day or week. So the wood may sit a few days if the eye said to rip it into 6” wide rough flooring, but that day they are running 4” inch wood. (One more step in the chain of events: setting up the tools to make the size they want to run that day.)

Now it goes through the mill to make flooring, the machine cuts the side match, a person gets that board and marks the board to cut out the bad stuff. Holes, large knots and whatever is not going to make good flooring. That person has a big task because they can control the waste or money made on the boards. Cut too much, too much waste; cut too little and your grade drops to less money for that board. Then it is off to the end match and if you think your eyes cannot move like a swinging plumb bob, you’re wrong. This person has to review the flooring for everything. That person will shoot the flooring to the correct slot to get put into bundles as we know them. There is more, that person putting the flooring into bundles will grade the flooring again so that it should not be a No. 2 common in a clear bundle. They have a belt to take it around again to get put in the correct shoot for that grade of flooring. So that one board is looked at more times than the Sunday paper in the bathroom.

Then off to you and me for install, in that time line you are looking at 3.5-4 months. So now that is why it is odd for me, the adjustment is much more than one would think. That was the short Wayne version of the story, if you ask the folks at the mill and allow them to get in to great detail, this would be even longer. Just like I said … machine parts do not grow on trees, put flooring does.

I hope we can learn this together, and you don’t mind my posts now and again.

Posted By Wayne Lee At 9:41 AM • Comments (1)

Sunday, April 21, 2013

How Other Trades Outside Can Mess Up Your Finish

By Avi Hadad

I remember my first big job. I remember it because it was the only job where I had to give the owner a free extra coat. It was a Thursday when we applied the last coat. I met with the owners the next day for a walk-through. I was so happy because it was Friday and I knew I had put on a great coat. So I was ready to pick up my final payment and start my weekend. The general contractor saw me outside shortly after I arrived; he looked at me, and I knew something was wrong. I said, “What’s wrong?” He replied, “Did you see the floor?” I walked into the house to find two big puddles of dust right in the center of the great room. The room was more than a 1,000 square feet, by the way. I looked up and I saw two skylights. Evidently, the owner had scheduled the roofers to finish off the work up there the day we were applying the final coat. Neither the general nor I had any knowledge of that, because the owner never bothered to tell us. Or, as I see it today: I never asked!

This leads me to how other trades can mess up your floor without being inside the house. I took some photos of other trades on one of my jobs to show you where they “hide.” I use the word “hide” because at times it feels like I am in charge of a big group of babies who have no understanding of how their work affects mine. As if it weren’t hard enough for us contractors having to be responsible for the crawl space, moisture conditions, gutter and downspouts’ existence, HVAC… Now we need to maintain full control of everyone else on the job.

The landscapers were up on the trees cutting off branches and down on the ground blowing leaves and dust. When I finish floors, I create cross ventilation with leaving the windows opened just about an inch.

Avi_Tree trimming.jpg

The painters outside were setting nails on the siding, knocking dust off the walls, trim and whatever was there on the ceiling:

The job was done in phases. On the one side of the house the general put heavy equipment on the floor. At times there was nothing more than just paper underneath.

The general had subs working upstairs on the finished part of the floor. Windows were wide open and “expected living conditions” did not exist anymore:

So, now whenever we do a job I have a list of items I check with both the owner and the other contractors. It is a headache and it is a lot. But, at least I cover myself and I don’t have to give anyone a free coat.

Posted By Avi Hadad At 9:32 AM • Comments (5)

Friday, April 19, 2013

Simple Advice for Making Videos

By Scott Avery OK, as part of my series on marketing I promised some tips on making videos, and here they are:
Posted By Scott Avery At 6:01 PM • Comments (3)

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

NWFA Expo: Beyond an Edger & a Gallon of Finish

By Scott Avery

Hi there, everyone. It’s been quite a while for me on the blog and mostly I was scrambling in preparing seminars for convention and then managing our floor projects (spring break week) prior to convention. I’m going to resume post No. 3 of the marketing section by Friday. Prior to that, I wanted to give you a contractor’s feedback on my time at the Expo. It is the Contractor Blog, after all, and I love the readers, whether you made it to Expo or not!

This year I traveled to our convention as well as having my employee Andrew go, too. I wanted Andrew to experience that the world of wood flooring goes beyond an edger and a gallon of finish. It seems like the Expo harbors the greatest opportunity to really go “wow” after hearing someone rattle off a really genius observation from their field experience or seeing a new innovative product. To me that is the essence of why you go meet other people in your industry that live outside of your region. It takes you from assuming that you’re an expert to seeing that expertise is a journey, as cheesy as it sounds.

I will be very candid to the readers about costs and Expo… It is not cheap to attend a resort-based convention, but there are ways to deal with the costs if you are staying on site. Here are a few:

Plan to consume less alcohol if you don’t want a lighter wallet. I put that first because conventions are synonymous with good times.
Avoid the fancy steak restaurants and eat salads or sandwiches from the small cafes. That alone will save you close to half the nightly cost of a room.
Drink the FREE coffee from your room. Sounds simple, but it is not bad tasting if it comes from a fancy resort. I switched to Yerba mate, so I brought a bag of the tea and a French press.
Relax and take advantage of the gym or the pool. I’m not Dr. Oz, but I often journal my diet and exercise and study on Google. Good health makes your mind sharp and your mood upbeat. Sharper minds and decreased appetites are better for your wallet. I went for a 6:30 a.m. run in the rain prior to my seminars because I cared about my seminar attendees (see the pic below, courtesy of show photographer David Stluka) and wanted to focus on mental clarity more than packing away omelets. Eat less and save!

I skipped the keynote due to speaking preparations, so I am unable to comment on Howard Putnam, but I heard it was a good time. The “Cousins on Call” were certainly WAY better than Carter Oosterhouse from the 2012 convention, which was comedic at best. I don’t intend to make a mockery of previous speakers, because if you put me on stage with an HGTV primetime travel schedule, I’d likely sound bewildered, too. This year’s luncheon was much more “real” feeling because the guys on camera actually have touched a hammer prior to being on camera. That’s just my take.

Beyond our celebrity speakers, the seminars were a tough decision in attendance because the topics were all so relevant to running a contracting business. I attended the seminar by Chris Zizza and have to tell you, I really admire that guy. He is a case study in how to be a positive employee manager of a business and yet authoritative in what matters, serving your customer. Couple that with a deep understanding of estimating and sales psychology, and I’ll just say that I’m glad he’s not my competitor. ?

Now, I have a small bone to pick if you’re still reading at this point. Manufacturers of products: Please allow your sales representatives to engage the contractors and take them to dinner, even if you specify a spending limit. Either I’m the least cool person at convention or budgets have really tightened, because at 6 p.m. the dinner invites were like finding a needle in a haystack. Contractors buy from distributors, who buy from manufacturers, so let’s please consider that the big money is in the small money, so to speak. It’s a small point in a way, but the DIRECT EYES IN THE FIELD are the contractors who are the end users. If you want to know about your sales numbers, then you need to know directly about the quality of your products from the guys who still have your stain or finish on their fingernails. What your chemist and your CEO are pitching needs to be in line with what the contractors are delivering to the homeowner, or you are in for a lot of headaches or sleepless nights from a guilty conscience.

Now that I’m off that little rant, let me tell you about more good news. Next year at our Expo in Nashville, Tenn., we will be more able to choose in spending because NWFA is free from our contract to Gaylord Resorts. I hope I’m not spilling proprietary information here, but it simply means that costs will be a little more manageable for smaller contractor outfits that want to stay on-site and eat food across the street at a local restaurant without the resort markup. I really want to see more of my contractor buddies there next year, so I will very much continue to do all I can to keep you at the forefront for of this business. Remember that the single most important thing for a contractor is to plan prior to harvest season for the next planting season.

Posted By Scott Avery At 4:48 PM • Comments (0)

My NWFA Expo Takeaway: Keep It Simple!

By Wayne Lee

I just could not sit here and not write something about the NWFA convention.

in recent years I went as a flooring contractor, but this year, to my delight, I went as a manufacturer again. The floor space was full of new ideas and products. During the show, I took a trip around the floor, looked at the products, saw the new trends and saw friends.

The opening speaker (Howard Putnam, former Southwest Airlines CEO) was great; his message was simple: Keep it simple. How simple can it be? Glad you asked. The keys that hit me were:

A. Relationships need to be open and honest from the start. Make sure the people on your staff, crews and folks you depend on for your company all know the path you wish to take.

B. Seek dynamic people to help with your company’s direction. Don’t follow the mold of others and hope they are right.

C. Make sure your people are allowed to use their skills and talents—the ones you were seeking when you hired them. Give them the room and space to be who and what you looked for to begin with.

D. Set goals and be ready for turbulence—it is a part of life. Rough times will come, but know they will not last. Most of all, know your plans and preparations will guide you to smooth times.

If one thing stood out the most (for me), it was: Don’t let others tell you that it won’t work and then believe them. If Southwest gave up on a simple dream years ago, it would not be what it is today. Don’t let someone tell you where to sit, go find your seat and enjoy the ride. Now, this is all “Wayne.” I am sure others found more insight from his presentation than just what my simple mind picked up. If you were able to hear his presentation and care to share, please post a few words in the comments on this post.

What was hardest for me at the show was that it was not easy for me to get to all the education programs. The speakers were all ready to share and share and share some more, but it’s one of those times in life when you wished you could be in two or three places at the same time.

The best part for me was Friday… Mr. Boone and I were asked to do a class on the preventive maintenance for the sanders. With the full support of Frank Kroupa, tech director for the NWFA, we asked the manufacturers to partner with us. This was the first time we not only did the preventative “service” on the sanders but also, with the help of Mr. Boone, added how to prevent imperfections in the floor. The big words like wave, chatter and dish-out were the topic of the day. How to prevent them, get them out and review our sanding skills. We were lucky to have Josh Neuberger with UFloor, Russ Watts with Palo Duro, Matt Crawford with Clarke American Sanders, Frank with the NWFA and then my great friend Daniel. They were present for a full day of “simple” things we can do to prevent the turbulence. How was that for getting the plug in? (You can see a few photos from the machine class in the HF Facebook Expo photo album.)

The next stage in my life is (and will be) fun! Getting to know the wood flooring side of life besides sanding it, installing it and getting it flat is an eye-opener. As I stood in the booth doing my best to grab all the stuff going in and out, it became real clear that it is time to buckle down and learn. Something I enjoy doing is learning and keeping up on the latest information. With that said, I can tell you that Middle Tennessee Lumber is going to allow me the time for all of the NWFA schools this year. My goal is give all my simple mind has to give and take back all it can hold. The next two classes are at the headquarters of the NWFA, and man, am I looking forward to both of those.

Well, I need to get to learning ways to keep it simple, so once more thank you all for reading my blog. I am enjoying all the blogs, please keep up the great work.

Posted By Wayne Lee At 11:14 AM • Comments (1)

Tuesday, April 09, 2013

Video: Reporting from the Awards Stage at the Expo

By Avi Hadad Here's my attempt at reporting for everyone right on stage before the Awards Luncheon at the NWFA Expo last week (with a cameo from NWFA outgoing Chairman Rick Holden!):
Posted By Avi Hadad At 9:41 AM • Comments (2)

Friday, April 05, 2013

Video: From the Show Floor at the Dallas NWFA Expo

By Scott Avery I wish everyone could have been with us at the NWFA Expo in Dallas this week. Here are my thoughts at the end of the show:
Posted By Scott Avery At 11:09 AM • Comments (2)

Monday, March 25, 2013

Why Bamboo, Composite, Engineered & Prefinished Floors Are Not Green

By Avi Hadad

In my book, domestic woods are the best choice for wood floors, especially oak. Years ago manufacturers brought us bamboo, engineered and composite products. That was to fill a demand from consumers. Fast, cheap and pretty. Over the years, different products came and went. All products had their share of problems. I had been thinking for awhile now about our flooring trade—about which products have come and gone and which are here to stay. I think it was last month when I was called to inspect two failed bamboo floors over concrete slabs … floors that needed to be replaced. That triggered this post for me. I had said it a million times and will say it another million times: Harvesting our forests responsibly is the best thing for the environment, produces the best products, creates most long-lasting products and leaves the smallest carbon footprint of all other flooring products. I’d like to mention some things some of you may not be aware of, and here are some of the facts you cannot argue:

Clear-cutting forests to put in bamboo plantations affects not only the trees that are now gone, but the entire habitat for wildlife is gone.
Think about all the strand products that need to be replaced because of failure. Most of them are on concrete. Now you are piling up the landfill with strand garbage and having to grind down more concrete, use more epoxy sealers and use more adhesives to install another floor.
These floors require glues, resins and chemicals to produce them. Oak, well, you just have to cut it.
Consider the short life of these floors: Most of the engineered and composite products have already been replaced. The new owners did not like them. You could not change the color. Could not refinish them. They were discontinued … You name it.
I have torn up oak floors because they were more than 100 years old and could not be sanded anymore. That’s it.
Non-solid products behave in many different ways. Nobody really knows how strand and composite products respond to changes in relative humidity and temperature. That creates a ton of failed floors. Every time you have a failed floor in strand and engineered products, they have to be replaced.
Refinishing prefinished floors releases toxins to the air, some of which you and I can’t even pronounce.
You have to do more sanding to remove the micro-bevel on prefinished floors—probably twice the amount of the material removed when refinishing standard square-edge unfinished oak.
Most of the other products are made overseas. That reminds me of a story—at a local lumber yard around here someone walked in with a prefinished bamboo plank that had a child-size handprint on it—can you say child labor and sustainable together without stuttering?
Most composites are so hard to nail so installers prefer to glue them, even on a wood subfloor. When that floor comes up (and it will), the subfloor will come up with it. Not to mention the use of adhesives, the cleaners for them and the off-gassing.
Hand-scraped prefinished floors can only be refinished by re-scraping. Who will pay for that? Plus, some of them are light woods like maple. The color on them comes from dyes in the finish. How many guys do you know who can replicate that?
Every time there is problem with a floor someone calls, drives, prints, takes photos, emails, flies and the list goes on. If it goes to court, now we have a ton of people handling that case. That means more people driving, printing, emailing, filing, and the list goes on. That is all part of a carbon footprint.

Again, all you have to do with domestic woods is harvest them responsibly. With controlled harvesting, the forests will last forever. That is truly a sustainable source.

I know there will be plenty of people who have responses to what I’ve written in this post, and I’ve asked the HF Green Blogger, Elizabeth Baldwin, to respond soon on her blog with her thoughts on this topic.

Posted By Avi Hadad At 10:44 AM • Comments (28)

Monday, March 11, 2013

Been Caught Cheating… In a Good Way

By Avi Hadad

Before I install a floor, I snap a primary line and then transfer it to the rest of the house. I want to know what I’m up against before I install my first row, not by the time I get to the other side of the house.

It is very common to find that one half of the house is more than an inch off. How do you compensate for that?

With all floors you can cheat your way around that problem. Cheating means you make things that are imperfect LOOK perfect. In the photos you see here, I installed a prefinished solid hand-scraped maple. One part of the house was off by more than an inch (25.4 mm). Over the width of a doorway, that meant I had to taper one board about 3/16” (4.7 mm). That doorway was on one end of our primary line. By the time we got to the other end, we lost an inch coming into the hallway. That was about 30 feet away. So, even though the doorway plank was tapered only 3/16”, the entire floor in the long section lost a lot more than that.

Because of the circumstances, we ended up having to compensate for that inch meeting our floors in another doorway. I ended up using wider planks, compensating for the difference with several rows. After that we matched the edges, the profile and the color. By the time we were done everything looked parallel to the walls; we didn’t have any rips in the field or face nails. Here are some photos:

cheating doorway wood floor layout 1.jpg

cheating doorway wood floor layout 1.jpg

cheating doorway wood floor layout middle.jpg

cheating doorway wood floor layout 3.jpg

Time consuming? Yes.

And for the consumer who asks, “Why do I need to pay more for the labor?”, this is one of many examples showing how great installers spend extra time on the details. A great installer needs to know how to make everything LOOK plumb, square, flat, level and perfect.

Posted By Avi Hadad At 10:14 AM • Comments (2)

Wednesday, March 06, 2013

Can You Run Big Machines Off a Generator?

By Wayne Lee

As many of you read in my last blog post, I am no longer a contractor. I am shutting down Cardinal Hardwood & Tile and decided to join the folks at Middle Tennessee Lumber, and a great part of my new job is that I’ll be back teaching at the NWFA schools. I’ll still try to post some of my insights from the road here on my blog.

I just got back from the NWFA school in California, and I wanted to share one part of our field maintenance class. We were asked: Can I run my sanders off a generator?

The answer is: Yes, you can, so long as you follow this rule:

Take 750 watts X the horsepower X 2, and that is the minimum size generator you will need. So if your sander is 4-hp, here is the math:

750 watts x 4 hp = 3,000 Watts X 2 = 6,000 Watts

That is the smallest unit you can run the big machine on. The concern is startup because the unit will pull it down on startup. So, I like to use 750 X 4 = 3,000 X 4 = 12,000. That way when the unit starts up, it will not bog down the generated power we need to start up the big machine.

Posted By Wayne Lee At 10:35 AM • Comments (7)

Contractor Blog

CONNECT WITH HF

FEATURED SUPPLIERS