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Australian cypress

16 years ago

I love the look of australian cypress but all the wood stores I have gone to say their proffessional installers will not install it because of it's hardness. We were planning on a DIY so this is really concerning me. Should I walk away from my plan? I just want something that is not oak, has some style to it and will not break the bank but I am getting so discouraged.

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Comments (5)

floorguy
16 years ago
The installation of real hard wood is expected to cost more, but to refuse to install it all together??? This tells me their installers don't have the experience with exotic wood floors, to understand what needs to be done to keep the tongues from splitting, and it involves a drill & sharp bit, hammer and 8d's
floorman67
16 years ago
have a scarp piece as a tapper block, then use cement coated 8 or 10 penny finish nails, and like floorguy said, predrill to prevent splitting.

IF you get any trouble with slight bows, nail a block of wood to the floor close to the piece you are installing, then using a prybar and your scrap beater block (to protect the piece you are installing) you can pry it gently into place, then nail it in.

hand nailing, predrilling, and prying for leverage for bow correction takes considerably longer, but its very do-able.

I imagine they dont want to dedicate that much time or charge so much for it that it might be prohibative to getting and keeping customer. Or they just dont know how.

hard to tell ... it might just be too much of a pain for them to mess with.
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brucerussell
16 years ago
AC hardness is only Janka 1375 slightly harder than red oak. Am I missing something
lynn_r_ct
Original Author
16 years ago
I don't understand it either brucerussell, but everyone I spoke with has said that it is very brittle. I just really like the unusual look.
jerry_t
16 years ago
It's the brittleness issue I think... tongue splitting. Takes a more experienced sand/finish guy to work with this. More sanding sequences and difficult to achieve a flat surface because the knots are harder than the grain and will produce a wavy appearance if one is not careful. It has a lot of resin in it too that will clog the paper.

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