Depth Of Relief Cuts In Wood Flooring

Freshly cut wood called green wood is well saturated with natural moisture from its sap and resins.

Depth of relief cuts in wood flooring.

The stress relief prevents your hardwood flooring boards from cupping maintaining it s flatness. Set the saw blade depth 1 16 in. For stress relief i would cut across the width of boards and not with the length. The major reason for the kerf on the back of wood flooring is to lighten the weight of the boards after manufacturing.

This would be done at 8 12 on center. The differing rates between the two thicknesses will cause a log or board to slip. Stress relief depth should be from 20 30 of overall thickness stress relief along the width should be from 50 65 of the finished width dimension. The relief cut helped the molding span over the plaster grounds and the slight high spot right at the back of a jamb.

As soon as the wood is cut it begins to release that its moisture content with thin areas in the wood drying faster than thicker areas. As shown in the example below. Knowing what cut your hardwood flooring is isn t just for aesthetic reasons it s mainly structural. This reduces the cost of shipping and makes the materials easier to handle.

Secondly it cuts the surface area that contacts the sub floor. Saw two parallel relief cuts an inch apart down the center of the flooring plank to be removed. Plaster is pretty much the origin. Relief cuts in flooring these small cuts out of the bottom of flooring actually have 2 purposes.

Kerf cuts are small grooves sawed into the underside your deck boards using a circular or table saw to relieve the surface tension. Position the circular saw in front of the newly created butt joint with the saw guard retracted the blade clear of the flooring and the weight of the saw balanced on the. Firstly it breaks the tension that causes wood to cup. Similar to plywood engineered flooring is manufactured by sandwiching top and bottom layers of hardwood around interior core layers of lesser priced processed composites.

This should be a series of grooves or fluted across the width not one large groove. Blade widths are usually 1 8 make sure that the cuts are evenly spaced either one cut creating two halves two cuts creating thirds three cuts creating quarters ect. The relief cut kept the flat surface of the casing and base off the wet wall surface and also provided a bit of air circulation behind the wood which helped prevent cupping and warping. To help counter the differing degrees of shrinking and swelling among these layers of unlike materials the bottom layer gets kerf cut.