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Products: Bolefloor - unique floorboards cut by computer to minimise waste

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    • CommentAuthorrhamdu
    • CommentTimeMar 15th 2011
     
    From boingboing (via a Facebook friend; not an ad): "Bolefloor makes hardwood floors that eschew the wastefulness of straight lines. Instead, they use computerized analysis to calculate puzzle-fit lengths that follow the curves and irregularities of the uncut logs, producing an organic, irregular mosaic that I find much preferable to the straight line"

    http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/15/curvy-wood-floors-us.html
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeMar 15th 2011
     
    I like it
    • CommentAuthorJoiner
    • CommentTimeMar 16th 2011
     
    Very nice, but I thought we were all for a simpler life? :bigsmile:
    • CommentAuthorCWatters
    • CommentTimeMar 16th 2011
     
    Looks great. Someone pointed out that replacing a board would be hard but perhaps not... Presumably the computer logs the shape of each board so you can ask for another board to be cut...or you could send the old one back and have it cloned.
    • CommentAuthorowlman
    • CommentTimeMar 16th 2011
     
    I suspect that it's an engineered board with a top layer (3-4mm) of constructional through and through cut veneers. Otherwise board movement will be horrendous. The random nature will probably be done when cutting and laying up the veneers which are then scanned, CNC cut along the various joins and correspondingly T & G profiled. Plenty of wastage in the veneer side of things but a nice looking product. I guess you have to specify the room area etc not just a matter of picking up a few boards.
    • CommentAuthorJoiner
    • CommentTimeMar 16th 2011
     
    Errr. "they use computerized analysis to calculate puzzle-fit lengths that follow the curves and irregularities of the uncut logs". Uncut logs. The bits they say this machine utilises don't usually go to waste anyway, certainly not in the mill I worked in. They're used for waney-edge boards for cladding and aren't cheap, so quite why they say that part of the log would be wasted beats me. Unless a high-tech mill full of high-tech machines didn't want the place to get dirty because they only did business with people with enough money to spend on this kind of nonsense and who wouldn't be seen dead in a place with a layer of dust on all the machines - and the blokes!

    I don't know. What are the middle-classes coming to! :crazy:
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeMar 16th 2011 edited
     
    Isn't it another way of automatically distinguishing good from poor timber, detecting and following the actual wandering boundary between the two when cutting out the latter, so using the former to the max? Not so different from engineered finger-jointed lengths, where knots and faults are cut out and the resultant short lengths of sound timber are glued end to end, giving v strong v stable product, in v long lengths if reqd.

    This seems to be doing something similar, but widthwise. In a straight edged board all poor must be cut away taking much of the sound with it. Alternatively some of the poor gets included.
    • CommentAuthorJoiner
    • CommentTimeMar 16th 2011
     
    Believe me Tom, nothing gets wasted in a saw mill! The only thing leaving in a lorry is the sawdust and small offcuts to the pulp factories for boards. The only reason we cut offcuts to logs was because there was a demand for them locally. Not sure I'd approve of that now, knowing what I now do about unfiltered biomass.

    Cutting floorboards in this way does little different than give you a fancy looking floor for which you'll pay an arm and a leg, so banker's-bonus boards. You're still going to get the same "wastage" going to the pulp guys.

    Just don't see the point in giving the rich another option for self-indulgence.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeMar 16th 2011
     
    So as a principle it's OK to use mill techniques that don't maximise the extraction of quality timber from what's cut because it still has value and utility as waste?
    • CommentAuthorJoiner
    • CommentTimeMar 16th 2011
     
    It's not wasted if it has a use - just not as floorboards in the house of some rich idiot with an architect out to impress.
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeMar 16th 2011
     
    Joiner, have you been chewing wasps today? B^>

    Rgds

    Damon
    • CommentAuthorJoiner
    • CommentTimeMar 16th 2011
     
    :bigsmile::wink:
    • CommentAuthorrhamdu
    • CommentTimeMar 16th 2011
     
    Joiner, I defer to your sawmill experience. And I know they that across North America's masonry-starved plains, they make most any part of a house out of wood.

    However, here in England I see an awful lot of hardwood flooring and not much waney-edge cladding. So it could make economic sense to turn the wiggly bits of the log into flooring rather than cladding.
  14.  
    Posted By: Joinersome rich idiot with an architect


    ...where are all the rich idiots these days, we could do with some of those to hire us...

    (I hope there was no implication meant that only an idiot hires an architect or even that architects are only for the rich...? I do hope not... :devil: )

    J
    • CommentAuthorJoiner
    • CommentTimeMar 16th 2011
     
    :confused::bigsmile::bigsmile::bigsmile::bigsmile:
    • CommentAuthorJoiner
    • CommentTimeMar 16th 2011
     
    One of my best friends is an achitect and a lot of my old customers (some of whom became and remain friends) are rich. It's just that the former isn't out to impress and the latter aren't daft enough to buy that kind flooring, but then they share my traditional values.

    Pehaps my view would change if the stuff was produced and sold at the same cost/price as traditional stuff in both instances and it didn't prove to be another factor in the reduction of feedstock to board manufacturer.
    • CommentAuthordickster
    • CommentTimeMar 17th 2011
     
    But....

    Doesn't it look fantastic?
    • CommentAuthorJoiner
    • CommentTimeMar 17th 2011
     
    Yeah. OK.:wink:
    • CommentAuthorowlman
    • CommentTimeMar 17th 2011
     
    Posted By: dickster.
    Doesn't it look fantastic?

    Agreed, but if it's solid wood as opposed to an engineered product, in my opinion it is full of potential problems.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeMar 17th 2011 edited
     
    When I first saw this thread I wondered if they started with rectangular boards and then routed wavy/wobbly shapes out.
    I did a study on a large food factory about 6 years ago and was amazed how little waste there was in that industry. What is it they say about a pig' 'you can eat everything except the squeak'. Mass production and distribution is increasable efficient, this was backed up by the local 'farmers market' lady who did not want a carbon audit done on 'her farmers' as she knew it would not look good.

    What is wrong with Axminster carpet?
    • CommentAuthorJoiner
    • CommentTimeMar 18th 2011
     
    It chaffs the knees! :wink:

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