I'm making my own flooring using 3/16" thick maple veneers. They are about 4 to 6" in width. I staggered two sheets of osb (1/2") as a subfloor. I glued and stapled them together with titebond 2. My plan is to glue and micro pin the veneers down directly to the osb with glue. Not sure if I should use tightbond or a wood flooring adhesive? Or, not sure if it will even work or stay down with any moisture changes etc? I have tried the micro pin nails on a test board and they seem to take out any cupping in the maple and I've sanded the osb so the joints are flush. I know flooring is never done like this, but I'm really curious if it will work and what ideas anyone might have.

OSB, wood veneer, water based glue, and pin nails?

Your sunk

Ok, how about vacuum press it onto 1/2" ply first? But would rather not go there.

Are you desparate to use the material? Is it of historic importance to you? Or are you trying to save money and do it yourself? #2 would be the only factor for executing a flooring solution that will likely cost hundreds of times more than any other option.

Trying to save money and just sort of curious about the outcome. Also, I hate a lot of the pre-finished engineered stuff with its short lengths, micro bevel, etc. And 3/4" t & g is a waste of nice wood. I'm getting 3 slices of veneer out of 4/4 stock.

There is a reason this is not seen. It does not work, or will take so much time and trouble that is not worth doing commercially.

And "work" is a subjective term. Are gaps acceptable? Will it be sanded again after laying/cure? You will not be able to make a monolithic slab of Maple without gaps. If you don't bevel the edges, they can slice.

Other than all the things that can go wrong, what can go wrong?

A good friend of mine who is considered the best wood floor guys in northern Michigan, makes some of his flooring using a good grade of half inch ply and glues 1/4” to it. He then tounge and grooves it. I have some pictures of a cool radius floor he did this way. Only he rippled it up and made curved sections before t and g.

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Matt, That's amazing, sort of makes me dizzy to look at. I don't imagine you know what glue he's using? And I would guess a vacuum bag or vacuum frame press?

I did a test with TB II and BASF MasterWeld 948, a polyurethane adhesive. Pretty impressive results. The TB II would be great if I was making potato chips.

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Not sure of the glue. But I believe he just gets a bunch of sections ready, and makes a big stack of 10 to twelve sections of flooring, and clamps the with regular bar clamps. Calls are used of course and waxed paper between the glue ups. For the radius ones he told me he then ripped up the engineered flooring into strips and glued up into curved sections. Having seen how he did it, I wonder if it might hav been better to make thicker radiused wood glue ups, resawn it to 1/4” then glued it to a solid piece of ply, but his way worked out quite well.

David, I think some gaps will look ok and was going to sand it before finishing. Not trying to make it look too perfect.

osb is a cheap poor substrate. One side is pressed smooth the other side has this funky embossed rough surface.

Titebond PVA glues like paper thin glue joints between perfectly smooth surfaces. Edge glued maple taken directly from the jointer with sharp knives is ideal.

You need to use a gap filling glue with the osb. I believe you will have a much better product using a decent quality ply like c/d non structural or some foreign stuff at Homie Dopie. Then you can use a regular PVA. As long as you get good clamping.

Matt,
I am taking this post off track. L have a few questions on the process of how the flooring was made. One, what did they use for a gluing process once the laminations were ripped into strips. After that , I would assume the boards were ran through a wide belt sander. Two, were the boards t&g'ed on a shaper with a guide bearing. Lastly, man hours?
Geoff

Not sure of the glue, guessing epoxy. He said it took roughly six weeks, with four days to install. He showed me his tramel setup, I’m not sure if he made curved templates then t and g the blanks, or used the tramel to t and g. Not sure of the man hours. Ill see if i can get my friend to chime in as he is the expert at this and knows all the ins and outs. The house its in is a four to five year build.

Geoff and Matt, It's ok with me to take this thread off topic. I am also interested in you're friends process, Matt. Especially the calculation of the different radiuses. It would be interesting to know what glue he's had success with also. Thank you everyone for all the responses, I will have pix soon of the floor I'm doing.

Here is a pix before sanding and finish. Time will tell....

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matt, that is a pretty job your friend did... WHich glue is he using, I got some ply and want to try this.