Gluing & screwing ply sheets down to CLS, Toolstation has some cheap (cheaper than Egger) D4, but 10 minutes? Is there a good slower option?
Does all D4 glue set in 10 minutes?
D
Deleted member 174758
No. I have 10 minutes and 60 minute, Cure time also depends on temperature and MC
10 minutes being the working time with 60 minute being the total cure time?
I'd struggle to get the glue down and the sheet screwed in 10 minutes. Maybe if I put the screws in dry to make pilots.
D
Deleted member 174758
The 10 minute stuff almost never goes off in 10 minutes (it is invariably slower), but as you are only laying a single 2400 x 600mm sheet at a time (so about 30 screws) I can't see why you'd need the slower stuff (working two-up we typically lay 10 to 12 sheets an hour without breaking into too much of a sweat - what takes the time is doing the cuts at the edges, around pipes, steels, etc).
To position the sheets and get a tight joint I tend to use our "patent board adjusting tool kit" comprising a piece of 4 x 2in CLS or the like about 4 to 6 ft long and a 10lb/4.5kg sledge hammer. Because you should always start with a tongue facing towards the wall the CLS is butted against the groove edge and won't do any damage - just position your board with the tongue in the adjacent groove, drop it onto the joists, butt the CLS against the edge of the board and stand feet apart heels on the board you have just laid, toes on the CLS and give it a couple of gently taps with the sledge and it will take the joint up really tight. Your last board might be a narrow rip in which case a heavy-duty flooring pull bar is a useful tool to have to pull that last board tight:
Flooring bars can also be useful for pulling the last end joints in (working on the groove edge, of course). These bars tend to get wrecked when we are using them, but they are generally good for a few thousand square feet of flooring before the welds give out! (maybe not meant to be used with a sledge or a club hammer like we do
)
TBH you can faff around as much as you like with a carpenter's hammer, but for this task nothing beats a sledge hammer, some CLS and a heavy pull bar.
The links above are to the items I use myself - the task doesn't require fancy or expensive tools, but it is far easier to get tight joints with the right kit
To position the sheets and get a tight joint I tend to use our "patent board adjusting tool kit" comprising a piece of 4 x 2in CLS or the like about 4 to 6 ft long and a 10lb/4.5kg sledge hammer. Because you should always start with a tongue facing towards the wall the CLS is butted against the groove edge and won't do any damage - just position your board with the tongue in the adjacent groove, drop it onto the joists, butt the CLS against the edge of the board and stand feet apart heels on the board you have just laid, toes on the CLS and give it a couple of gently taps with the sledge and it will take the joint up really tight. Your last board might be a narrow rip in which case a heavy-duty flooring pull bar is a useful tool to have to pull that last board tight:
Flooring bars can also be useful for pulling the last end joints in (working on the groove edge, of course). These bars tend to get wrecked when we are using them, but they are generally good for a few thousand square feet of flooring before the welds give out! (maybe not meant to be used with a sledge or a club hammer like we do
)TBH you can faff around as much as you like with a carpenter's hammer, but for this task nothing beats a sledge hammer, some CLS and a heavy pull bar.
The links above are to the items I use myself - the task doesn't require fancy or expensive tools, but it is far easier to get tight joints with the right kit
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Thank you.
Maybe you could beef up those welds with a garage mig set before taking a new bar out on the job?
I don't have t&g sheets, just standard 2400x1200x3/4" ply from B&Q.
Maybe I should make sure all the edges land on joists/noggins. Or glue some splice plies to the undersides, where unsupported sheet edges are pushed together?
Have you a link to the slow stuff?
What screws do you fix 3/4" ply down to CLS with? @ what ctrs?
Maybe you could beef up those welds with a garage mig set before taking a new bar out on the job?
I don't have t&g sheets, just standard 2400x1200x3/4" ply from B&Q.
Maybe I should make sure all the edges land on joists/noggins. Or glue some splice plies to the undersides, where unsupported sheet edges are pushed together?
Have you a link to the slow stuff?
What screws do you fix 3/4" ply down to CLS with? @ what ctrs?
D
Deleted member 174758
Yes, definitely. Also, make sure you leave a 5 to 10mm gap round the outside edges between the chipboad and the wall - the skirting will cover this, but if you don't do it you might well find that board edges trubbing against masonry can cause creaking or cracking sounds in time. If you are concerned about draughts the gap can be filled with Compraband, although if you are having laminate flooring I'd leave the compraband until after the laminate has been laid
4.0 to 4.5mm x 40 to 50mm chipboard or flooring screws (I tend to use collated flooring screws as I have a collated screw gun which can be used standing up
). I always go 150 to 200mm centres, which is maybe belt and braces, but I don't believe in skimping. You need to ensure when screwing the boards down that the boards don't "jack up" off the joists. An impact driver helps with this, as do flooring screws with an unthreaded top section of the shank, although they do cost a little bit more than fully threaded chipboard screws:With full square edged boards you don't have to overcome the inertia of tongues, so your positioning can be done with the old two hammers and wedges trick, or by using some form of floor cramp or joist cramp
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I tend to use collated flooring screws as I have a collated screw gun which can be used standing up
You use your own weight plus screws.
Would you butt ply sheet edges together with or without glue along edges?
I'm putting click vinyl down.
D
Deleted member 174758
Yes. You need to ensure that the board doesn't jack up off the joist, so the more weight you have near to the screwing point the better. The faster you drive the screw the better, too, which is why tradesmen use impact drivers (typically 2800 to 3600rpm) as opposed the cordless drills (typically 1200 to 2000rpm). Make sure that you drive the screw heads in flush first time - if you need to back the screw out and redrive it, reposition it a couple of millimetres away as half the time it won't flush properly second time round
I would put noggins in beneath the longitudinal edges and I would glue the butt joints, too. Had you used T&G boards this would not have been as necessary
I would put noggins in beneath the longitudinal edges and I would glue the butt joints, too. Had you used T&G boards this would not have been as necessary
D
Deleted member 174758
I just had a thought about these sheets. You say (so presumably B&Q told you) that these sheets are "standard 2400 x 1200mm". The problem is that every one of the thousands of sheets if "standard" MDF, chipboard and plywood that I have had come to me and my teams over the last 10 years from timber merchants has been 8 x 4ft - or 2440 x 1220mm, not 2400 x 1200mm. Do you already have these sheets on site? Can you measure them? I just have this sneaking suspicion that B&Q might have screwed up the conversion from Imperial to metric. Before laying a board you really do need ensure that the boards and joists are both metric (2400 x 1200 on 400 centre joists) or both Imperial (2440 x 1220 on 16in/406.7mm centre joists) before proceeding. Any mismatch will cause issues, and with PU glues you really don't want to be lifting boards once they have been dropped onto a glue bead (automatic admission to the black hand gang)
You're right about sheet sizes.
My cordless batteries are getting on a bit, but have a 240v SDS, would that be ok?
Was there no other option for a slower curing glue? A 60 minute?
D
Deleted member 174758
AFAIK you get 10 minutes or 60 minutes. You either learn to work faster (for example I can lay and screw a sheet of 2400 x 600 T&G in well under 10 minutes when I'm on form), or you use the slower curing glues. I can't see what your problem is. Once it is screwed in place it really won't move
An SDS is too big, too clumsy and too slow (at about 900rpm). You really do need a at least a half decent cordless drill/driver to do a floor, preferably a (faster) impact driver. You can get by with a slower drill/driver and a combined drill/countersink bit (such as a trend Snappy), but you may find yourself having to drill and countersink every hole in the chipboard before driving the screws and that makes the 60 minute glue advisable as it is going to take a while to drill/countersink then screw down. Can't you beg or borrow one? You have a lot of screws to drive - 50 per sheet (on 200mm centres) to 63 per sheet (150mm centres) - and ideally you need to get as many screws as possible in before the glue cures, especially as D4 glue expands
Edit: I went and had a look at the Screwfix and Toolstation sites and found to my surprise that they no longer sell Everbuild PU (D4) glue. The current PU formulations of PU seem to be a 30 minute and a 45 minute which surprised me as I'd swear that it used to be 10 or 15 minute and 1 hour. Maybe just a trick of the mind? I still have the CoSHH sheets for the Fuller PU glue which we used to use and they were definitely 10 and 60 minutes
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I'll replace one of the cordless batteries, and countersink with a small 240v b&d. Maybe countersink the lot before I start.