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Engineered oak floorboards - poor backing ply

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Engineered oak floorboards - poor backing ply

Postby RogerS » 30 May 2022, 16:19

Just taken delivery of some 260mm wide engineered oak floorboards.

The quality of the oak is superb.

But for starters, I ordered without micro-bevel. We just don't like them...too modern looking. They came with a micro-bevel !

So I thought I'd put two boards together to see just how bad the micro-bevel looked and that's when the real problem reared its head. I simply couldn't get the two long edges of the floorboards to tighten up. Taking them apart, I noticed that on one the backing board had simply disintegrated with lots of flaky bits stopping the gap closing.
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Cleaned that up but still they wouldn't close together tightly enough. On further inspection, I found that the quality of the backing ply was so dire that the machining had not cut cleanly and that there were long sections where the ply was proud of the oak hence not closing the gap.

Difficult to photograph well (that's my excuse!).

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In contrast, this is a photo of a board from French Forest Floors - now in retirement. Mind you, their oak wasn't brilliant as you can see.
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(312.59 KiB)


Currently in discussion with the manufacturer.
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Re: Engineered oak floorboards - poor backing ply

Postby AJB Temple » 31 May 2022, 07:44

Roger. Nothing seems to go right for you. :lol:

I sympathise. 8-)
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Re: Engineered oak floorboards - poor backing ply

Postby AndyT » 31 May 2022, 07:58

Try Kahrs. They use solid redwood for the backing, with the grain going the right way, ie cross grain on the clicking together part but all strong and void free.(At least, that's how it was when I did ours, but that was 10 years ago or more. )
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Re: Engineered oak floorboards - poor backing ply

Postby RogerS » 31 May 2022, 08:58

AndyT wrote:Try Kahrs. They use solid redwood for the backing, with the grain going the right way, ie cross grain on the clicking together part but all strong and void free.(At least, that's how it was when I did ours, but that was 10 years ago or more. )


But I don't think that they do 260mm wide.
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Re: Engineered oak floorboards - poor backing ply

Postby RogerS » 31 May 2022, 16:52

All sorted. I gave them three options including a generous partial refund and I sort things out.

That's the option they went for. Money already in my bank account. Can't say fairer than that. Refreshing to deal with a company that resolves problems readily and without fuss.
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