Hey folks,
I am planning a custom parquet floor which I will be installing as a
christmas gift for my mother. It's going to go in an L-shaped hallway,
and will be composed of a continuous outer band of quarter sawn white
oak, then a border composed of cherry diamonds (square shaped) in a
field of hard maple, another band of white oak, then a field with a
basket-weave white oak grid filled with triangular hard maple pieces,
each square finished with a small square of cherry in the middle. I'm
confident in my ability to build it, if I could only lay it out in a way
that works. The problem I'm having is in figuring out the size and
spacing of the diamonds in the border. I need to figure out a size where
all the diamonds will be equal in size and meet up in a continuous band
with no gaps or partial pieces. This is greatly complicated by the shape
of the room:
_______________________
| 62" (2) |
| |
|79" (1) 55"|
| (8)|
| |
| -------------------------------------
| 111" (7) |
| 35"|
| 39" (3) (6) |
---------------- 134" (5) |
step |9"_(4)_____________________________________|
(Sorry for the questionable ascii art :)
The outer border will be used to correct for the space not being square
at the corners. I am currently assuming that a 3" border will be
sufficient to achieve this, so the dimensions for calculating the border
are as follows (after subtracting 2x3 from sides 1,2,5 and 6), where x
is the width of the border (also the size of a "square" of the border,
which I currently don't know, and is what I'm trying to find out):
(1) 73"
(2) 56"
(3) 39+x"
(4) 9+x"
(5) 128"
(6) 29"
(7) 111+x"
(8) 55+x"
So basically I need to solve for x and, being a dunce at math, I have no
idea how to do so. Any mathmeticians or engineers out there looking for
a challenge? ;) Seriously though, I'm sure there has to be a formula for
doing this. While I'm at it, I might as well also ask if there's a
formula to figure out the optimal size for the squares within the field.
Could be the same formula, I have no idea :) Any help would be greatly
appreciated! Thanks a lot folks!
-AD
> I'm neither carpentry or cabinetry guru. I've pulled up my CAD program
> and was just tinkering to see how it might work out. What you say about
> absorbing the variances in the border sounds like it'll probably work -
> but there's enough work and material involved that I'd think you'll want
> to draw an accurate floor plan before committing resources.
Yes, the more I tinker, the more I realize the measurements I took
aren't sufficient to figure out the exact dimensions I need for each square.
> I'll play with it some more - but not tonight - and post anything that
> looks like it might be interesting. If it strikes me as "gee-whiz" I'll
> convert to an image and drop it into ABPW for criticism so we both
> learn. (-:
Cool, I'm anxious to see what you can come up with. My hand drawings
have been helpful, but when things don't come out quite right I can
never be sure whether it's the calculations that are off or my drawing.
Thanks!
-AD
> Lacking a CAD program get some graph paper and lay it out 1 square to
> the inch.
Got the graph paper yesterday afternoon actually :) It's a large size,
with 1" squares and 10 subdivisions within each square, so I'm doing
1/10 scale based on the measurements in inches (so 17.3" for the 173"
for instance). It sure beats blank 8.5x11 so far, but I havn't tried to
do any figuring of square sizes yet, so I guess time will tell.
> Snap chalk lines if possible at the 3" +/- line you want to use and use those measurements to figure out
> tile size.
Oooh, hadn't thought of doing that. That's a great idea. I'll probably
be able to go over there and do that tomorrow. I'll post my findings
after I get it done.
> If there's not a close enough value for them consider
> changing the border width in or out in the long or short direction, or
> both.
I read this as "change the width of the outer band of oak to make the
cherry/maple border longer or shorter in a dimension" Is that what you
meant, or am I misinterpreting? I'd thought about that, but wasn't sure
if it would work or not, because it seems to me that you end up creating
a gap somewhere else by adjusting in one spot. I couldn't think of a way
to get around that, but if there is one, I'd love to know it :)
> Just looking at it the critical part seems to be at the jog where,
> according to the given measurements given, you'll have a 17" x 18" area
> to fill between the corners of 3-4 and 8-7. There's your first
> adjustment to the border area, but probably not the last.
That was my suspicion, especially given the 9" side of the step. There's
not very many ways to divide that up and still end up with pieces that
are scaled appropriately. I will have to see what all the measurements
are after doing the squared-up chalk lines and see what happens I
guess... Thanks again for the advice!
-AD
> So basically I need to solve for x and, being a dunce at math, I have no
Erm, I guess I should clarify that x has to be a factor of all 8 numbers
that divides it without a remainder (there's probably a three-dollar
word for this, which I forgot to learn in any of my math classes :p),
otherwise it makes it much too easy to figure out :)
-AD
Morris Dovey wrote:
>
>> _______________________
>> | 62" (2) |
>> | |
>> |79" (1) 55"|
>> | (8)|
>> | |
>> | -------------------------------------
>> | *A* 111" (7) |
>> | 35"|
>> | 39" (3) (6) |
>> ---------------- 134" (5) |
>> step |9"_(4)*B*__________________________________|
>
> At the "west" end of the hall I add 79" and 9" and get 88" between the
> "north" and "south" walls.
Yes, that's right.
> At the "east" end I add 55" + 35" and get 90" between the "north" and
> "south" walls.
I chalk this up as the structure not being perfectly square
>
> What is your measurement between points *A* and *B* ?
I actually did not measure A to B as you've marked. I probably should go
back and get this measurement, but for purposes of laying out the
border, I'm not sure it matters. The plan is to use the the outer border
to absorb such squareness anomalies (it wouldn't actually be a
continuous 3" all around, since it would be cut in a way to make all the
corners inside the field square and opposing faces parallel to one
another to facilitate installing pre-cut squares of parquet) Assumption
1 is that a maximum width of 3" would be sufficient to do this, so that
subtracting 6" from each side that has two inside corners would result
in the actual length the border must span. Assumption 2 is that by
installing equal width pieces at each side of an outside corner, the
width to span by border would remain constant. Perhaps I'm thinking
about this all wrong... DAGS was largely unproductive, so I'm turning to
you folks to set me straight if this approach won't work, or if there's
a better way in general. Better to find out now than when I go to
install it... :)
Actually, the more I think about it, the better an idea it sounds to
just forget about trying to make it all divide up equally and just get
most of them to divide up and making some "special" blocks (maybe some
fancy inlay or something) to stick in strategic locations in walls where
it doesn't work out evenly. Er, make it a feature rather than a fix, as
it were. I dunno.. if there's a reasonably easy way to do it without
resorting to this, I'd rather go that way, but if it's more trouble than
it's worth, I'll do the spacer blocks instead. Let me know what you
think....
-AD
Morris Dovey wrote:
> Adam Diehl wrote:
>
>> Actually, the more I think about it, the better an idea it
>> sounds to just forget about trying to make it all divide up
>> equally and just get most of them to divide up and making some
>> "special" blocks (maybe some fancy inlay or something) to
>> stick in strategic locations in walls where it doesn't work
>> out evenly. Er, make it a feature rather than a fix, as it
>> were. I dunno.. if there's a reasonably easy way to do it
>> without resorting to this, I'd rather go that way, but if it's
>> more trouble than it's worth, I'll do the spacer blocks
>> instead. Let me know what you think....
>
>
> Adam...
>
> I'm neither carpentry or cabinetry guru. I've pulled up my CAD program
> and was just tinkering to see how it might work out. What you say about
> absorbing the variances in the border sounds like it'll probably work -
> but there's enough work and material involved that I'd think you'll want
> to draw an accurate floor plan before committing resources.
>
> I'll play with it some more - but not tonight - and post anything that
> looks like it might be interesting. If it strikes me as "gee-whiz" I'll
> convert to an image and drop it into ABPW for criticism so we both
> learn. (-:
>
Lacking a CAD program get some graph paper and lay it out 1 square
to the inch. Get accurate measurements from squared off corners,
you will have to create these inside the area. Snap chalk lines
if possible at the 3" +/- line you want to use and use those
measurements to figure out tile size. If there's not a close
enough value for them consider changing the border width in or out
in the long or short direction, or both.
Just looking at it the critical part seems to be at the jog where,
according to the given measurements given, you'll have a 17" x 18"
area to fill between the corners of 3-4 and 8-7. There's your
first adjustment to the border area, but probably not the last.
Joe
Adam Diehl wrote:
> Actually, the more I think about it, the better an idea it
> sounds to just forget about trying to make it all divide up
> equally and just get most of them to divide up and making some
> "special" blocks (maybe some fancy inlay or something) to
> stick in strategic locations in walls where it doesn't work
> out evenly. Er, make it a feature rather than a fix, as it
> were. I dunno.. if there's a reasonably easy way to do it
> without resorting to this, I'd rather go that way, but if it's
> more trouble than it's worth, I'll do the spacer blocks
> instead. Let me know what you think....
Adam...
I'm neither carpentry or cabinetry guru. I've pulled up my CAD
program and was just tinkering to see how it might work out. What
you say about absorbing the variances in the border sounds like
it'll probably work - but there's enough work and material
involved that I'd think you'll want to draw an accurate floor
plan before committing resources.
I'll play with it some more - but not tonight - and post anything
that looks like it might be interesting. If it strikes me as
"gee-whiz" I'll convert to an image and drop it into ABPW for
criticism so we both learn. (-:
--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/solar.html
Adam Diehl wrote:
> _______________________
> | 62" (2) |
> | |
> |79" (1) 55"|
> | (8)|
> | |
> | -------------------------------------
> | *A* 111" (7) |
> | 35"|
> | 39" (3) (6) |
> ---------------- 134" (5) |
> step |9"_(4)*B*__________________________________|
Adam...
I'm having a bit of difficulty understanding your drawing.
At the "west" end of the hall I add 79" and 9" and get 88"
between the "north" and "south" walls.
At the "east" end I add 55" + 35" and get 90" between the "north"
and "south" walls.
What is your measurement between points *A* and *B* ?
--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/solar.html