# Forum Home Renovation Flooring  Spotted Gum on Yellow Tongue; Glue, nail or both?

## AlexGirl

I have stalled, unable to make a decision. Had no trouble getting on with it at the beginning. I have replaced joists and bearers and damp proofed like a trooper. Continued on and laid yellow tongue and am very pleased at the work I have done. But now I can not decide on the best way to proceed. 
I have acclimatised my Spotted Gum timber (80x18), but now would like some advice on whether to glue or secret nail or do i do both?
As I am a beginner, i was inclined to think it would be better if I just secret nailed as this way would be easier to undo and fix any mistakes. Then i was told you must glue boards on to yellow tongue to prevent any noise from the two knocking together as you walk over them. It was also suggested i do both, but why would i need to secret nail if i have glued? 
Can someone please push me in the right direction before i waste another weekend deliberating about my next move?
Thanks so much,
alex 
(I would much prefer to do the job myself as i have gained so much satisfaction from the work i have done already and i'd like to finish it - Plus, it is only one room; my bedroom.)

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## METRIX

You need glue as well as either top nail or secret nail, maxbond is what we use. 
The advice you were given is correct, if you just secret nail the boards down you can get creaking noises between the new floor and the yellow tongue, the glue will stop any movement between the two. 
Don't worry about secret nailing if you think you will need to undo any mistakes, you WILL NOT get the mistake out without damaging the board, the secret nailer uses large staples and physically forces the board you are fixing down into the next board, once you have secret nailed you will not be able to get the remaining boards out as they are all pinned together. 
Advice - take your time and don't make any mistakes  :Biggrin:  
The way we do these types of floors is, set up a string line and glue and TOP nail the first two boards down ensuring the first board follows the string line perfectly, and use a chisel to get the gap out between the first and second board.
Then secret nail the remaining boards, the reason you top nail the first boards is because they need to be perfectly parallel to the opposing wall, if you try to secret nail them the secret nailer will knock them out of position and this will affect your whole job, due to the way a secret nailer works the first boards need to be exactly where you want them, as there will be no gaps left between the boards when the secret nailer forces them all together tightly (which is what you want). 
Also allow minimum 10mm clearance around all the walls for expansion / contraction over time, you will also need to top nail the last few boards that are near the wall, as the secret nailer is too big to fit close to the wall and hit the actuator. 
Go to this post to see results of a secret nailed job we did earlier this year, there was many days work to do the entire house, it is a combination of secret and top nailed in the areas the secret nailer could not get into, go to the bottom of the post to see the results.  http://www.renovateforum.com/f176/re...oughts-105433/

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## Gaza

> Maxbond/

  Mate you need to use a timber floor adhesive such ultra set or sika t55 Maxbond is rigd drying this us against all flooring suppliers data sheets and timber floor association and draft aus standard  
15yrs ago this was the go before the timber floor glues where around. 
Upto 100mm wide snake glue and secrete nail over 100mm snake glue secret then too nail or full glue and secret nail

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## METRIX

> Mate you need to use a timber floor adhesive such ultra set or sika t55 Maxbond is rigd drying this us against all flooring suppliers data sheets and timber floor association and draft aus standard  
> 15yrs ago this was the go before the timber floor glues where around. 
> Upto 100mm wide snake glue and secrete nail over 100mm snake glue secret then too nail or full glue and secret nail

  
We have used MAX Bond forever and never had any problems glueing directly to joists or sheet flooring. 
Every builder I know uses it for the same purposes we do and never heard any complaints or call backs for problems,  
Fullers description below.  
Max BondTM Construction Adhesive is a synthetic, rubber based  adhesive designed primarily for the installation of flooring and wall  panels. 
It is also ideal for bonding most common construction materials.  Recommended Use:   Installing particle board, fibre cement, plasterboard, plywood and strip flooring to joistsBonding fibre cement sheet to plasterboard and wall panelling to wooden and metal studsBonding skirting boards, architraves and trims to wallsBonding mirrors to walls (not overhead)     www.hbfuller.com.au@-@Max Bondâ¢ Construction Adhesive

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## intertd6

I'd love to know how to get away with top nailing a secret nailed floor here & there. I wouldn't accept it & I don't think an astute client or architect would either.
regards inter

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## METRIX

Inter 
You have to accept that the floor will need top nailing in certain spots, It is impossible to entirely secret nail a floor in every tight corner etc, the tool simply won't fit. 
The secret nailer is a large piece of equipment and will not get into the corners, close to the wall etc, even if you switch to a nail gun to do the last few boards secretly you still will not get into the last few boards as there is this thing called a wall which will be in the way. 
 if you would not accept this then you have unreal expectations of how a tongue and groove floor is to be laid, architects have nothing to do with real word installation of a floor, Builders are not magicians, and physical things such as walls, returns, jambs, and many other obstructions which are in a house simply get in the way.  
Any top nailing is patched up with color matched wood filler by the floor sanders, you don't see these once the floor has been sanded as the top nail holes are very small. 
Most of our jobs are for clients in the upper and lower North Shore of Sydney, these properties push into the millions of dollars, and I would say our clients are astute, as they are Solicitors, Lawyers, Directors etc and we have never had any complaints about the finished jobs of our secret nailed floors. 
The floor I linked to in the original reply above was one which required a fair amount of top nailing due to the design of the house, this house had many unusual shaped walls and created a challenge to secret nail the entire floor from one end of the house to the other. 
The clients were a solicitor, and a director of a large multinational company, they were extremely happy with the finished product of the floor, and did not complain about a few top nailed boards here and there as they could not see these. 
If you know of another way to entirely secret nail a cut floor without even one top nail please share your knowledge, I and others that install floors will be very interested to know, how to do it. 
Your also welcome to come to our next secret nail job to get some real world experience as to why top nailing is necessary in certain spots  :Smilie: .

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## METRIX

> Mate you need to use a timber floor adhesive such ultra set or sika t55 Maxbond is rigd drying this us against all flooring suppliers data sheets and timber floor association and draft aus standard  
> 15yrs ago this was the go before the timber floor glues where around. 
> Upto 100mm wide snake glue and secrete nail over 100mm snake glue secret then too nail or full glue and secret nail

  
To add to the above, Maybe 15 years ago Max Bond was not suitable as it probably was rigid drying, such as glues like Liquid Nails etc, I believe the formulas have changed over the years. 
Fuller states their product is Synthetic Rubber based, as such I would say there is flexibility in this glue hence the rubber based, if it caused problems such as drying rigid and created problems in the flooring we would have stopped using it long ago. 
You can only run on what the manufacturer recommends their product for, and Fuller recommend it for the purpose described.

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## Gaza

Fuller make this for T&g floors  www.hbfuller.com.au@-@Floor Bond XMSâ¢

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## Gaza

Using a mix of different brad guns and glue you can secrete nail whole floor and glue in rip boards against walls that are less than 50mm wide. 
I agree big gun can't do everywhere but we use ND and C1 brads to get into all corners

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## METRIX

Do they make it is a caulking gun size as well ?, I don't fancy troweling it on with all the other crap we have around when laying floors, and the apprentice will probably end up with his foot in the bucket  :Biggrin:

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## METRIX

> Using a mix of different brad guns and glue you can secrete nail whole floor and glue in rip boards against walls that are less than 50mm wide. 
> I agree big gun can't do everywhere but we use ND and C1 brads to get into all corners

  
Exactly what we use, but as you know the Paslode still needs some room to angle it, and sometimes it just won't fit.

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## aussieslr

Hi AlexGirl,
The Boral website has directions on how to install strip flooring. I used it to secret nail my 130mm boards down onto yellow tongue. I top nailed where I couldn't secret nail and used ultra set to glue them down. They have been down for 3 years but haven't been sealed so I have some cupping. I'll finally be getting them sanded with a month or two when my extension is finished. I'll definitely be having a beer that night. One other thing, the double layer of floor makes it quiet. Had some rug rats running on my recently and I could only just hear them.   Installation Guide - Boral 19mm Solid Strip Flooring

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## Larry McCully

Secret nail every 300-400mm along the board, 80mm board doesnt nessesarrly need adhesive if going on particle board.If you want tO USE GLUE, THEN use bostic ultraset or Sika T55 Flooring glue in a zigzag patten on the particle board. But make sure you secret nail every 300-400mm along the board.

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## Footscrazy

> We have used MAX Bond forever and never had any problems glueing directly to joists or sheet flooring. 
> Every builder I know uses it for the same purposes we do and never heard any complaints or call backs for problems,

  Just different trade names is all, I use Ultraset because that's what I use, I'm sure your product works fine.
The rest of your advice is spot on, a few top nails against walls and in cupboards is perfectly acceptable in a secret nailed floor, I've been doing it for years.
I use fixing brads for the purpose, they only leave a small nail hole which is easily patched with coloured filler.
The only thing I'd add for the OP's benefit is that we always give new yellow tongue a light sand to give a key for the glue.

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## Larry McCully

Polyurethane flooring glue such as Bostic ultraset or Siks T55 is designed for timber flooring. it can be used for other applications i am sure. However it is inportant that any adhesive that is used in conjunction with timber flooring is to be elastomeric. It needs to move with the board in the different seasons to cater for expansion and contraction. Other non elastomeric adhesives have a potential of fracturing because it is not capable of moving with the substrate. maxibond is far to ridged and does fracture.

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## ringtail

*x 3 for ultra set*. I've pulled up a few floors in the last couple of years and removed MDF VJ lining from a entire house. All had used maxbond and it had failed everywhere. Quite strange, it had sort of crystalised and when scraped with a chisel it came off the wall studs and yellow tongue like shards of toffee. Ultraset has been the only adhesive recommended for flooring *to me* since Ive been in the trade.

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## intertd6

> Inter 
> You have to accept that the floor will need top nailing in certain spots, It is impossible to entirely secret nail a floor in every tight corner etc, the tool simply won't fit. 
> The secret nailer is a large piece of equipment and will not get into the corners, close to the wall etc, even if you switch to a nail gun to do the last few boards secretly you still will not get into the last few boards as there is this thing called a wall which will be in the way. 
>  if you would not accept this then you have unreal expectations of how a tongue and groove floor is to be laid, architects have nothing to do with real word installation of a floor, Builders are not magicians, and physical things such as walls, returns, jambs, and many other obstructions which are in a house simply get in the way.  
> Any top nailing is patched up with color matched wood filler by the floor sanders, you don't see these once the floor has been sanded as the top nail holes are very small. 
> Most of our jobs are for clients in the upper and lower North Shore of Sydney, these properties push into the millions of dollars, and I would say our clients are astute, as they are Solicitors, Lawyers, Directors etc and we have never had any complaints about the finished jobs of our secret nailed floors. 
> The floor I linked to in the original reply above was one which required a fair amount of top nailing due to the design of the house, this house had many unusual shaped walls and created a challenge to secret nail the entire floor from one end of the house to the other. 
> The clients were a solicitor, and a director of a large multinational company, they were extremely happy with the finished product of the floor, and did not complain about a few top nailed boards here and there as they could not see these. 
> If you know of another way to entirely secret nail a cut floor without even one top nail please share your knowledge, I and others that install floors will be very interested to know, how to do it. 
> Your also welcome to come to our next secret nail job to get some real world experience as to why top nailing is necessary in certain spots .

  Learning how to truley secret nail a floor is usually taught to an apprentice within their first couple of years, normally they would be given a small inconspicuous area to do, a box of nails hammer, nail punch, chisel, saw, drill & bits. Then shown & told how to do it by cramping, nailing & punching each board a every joist though the tongue, then at the edges to drill & nail close to the edge so that the nails are covered by the skirting, they also pick up the skills needed to accurately cut & scribe flooring around walls & other features found along the way. Its not rocket science, but when a contract says secret nailed flooring fixing in a specification & there is top fixing done, don't be suprised one day for those sections to be removed & rectified at your own expence. If I had a reponse from a contractor or tradesman that said that fully secret nailing was not possible to joists or particleboard they simply wouldn't get the job.
In the real world of high end work the project documentations are of phone book thickness & when the project is say a supreme court or a house on a several blocks 100m deep running down the harbour with the coathanger as the vista the clients & architects expect workmanship of the highest quality
regards inter

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## Larry McCully

One of the biggest mistakes that happen alot in the world of timber flooring is to over use nails. I instruct my teams to rely heavely on adhesives. And use brads as a pinning method whilst the adhesive cures. I like the clean fresh look. I have seen to much work where the installer has littered the edges with nails just to hold down 3 boards. ARRRHHHHH!!! It looks ugly and is not professional. I have enough confidence in the Bostik and Sika Range of flooring adhesives to substatute it for nails. The correct amount of adhesive is used, no less and no more. The edges will be stuck down for life this way if done correctly, and the end result will be a fresh clean well presented timber floor.

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## Larry McCully

I need to clairiy that the system i just mentioned is for edges only around sections that you cant get the secret nail gun up to.

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## AlexGirl

> Hi AlexGirl,
> The Boral website has directions on how to install strip flooring. I used it to secret nail my 130mm boards down onto yellow tongue. I top nailed where I couldn't secret nail and used ultra set to glue them down. They have been down for 3 years but haven't been sealed so I have some cupping. I'll finally be getting them sanded with a month or two when my extension is finished. I'll definitely be having a beer that night. One other thing, the double layer of floor makes it quiet. Had some rug rats running on my recently and I could only just hear them.   Installation Guide - Boral 19mm Solid Strip Flooring

  Thank you Aussieslr...
And thanks for the debate. It was like all the voices in my head learned how to post.
Thank you all !!!
Alex

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## Bloss

> Learning how to truley secret nail a floor is usually taught to an apprentice within their first couple of years, normally they would be given a small inconspicuous area to do, a box of nails hammer, nail punch, chisel, saw, drill & bits. inter

  Mate - showing your age . . . .  :Redface:  the apprentices now would more likely be asking what's that thing (when shown a hammer . . .  :Biggrin: ) if you can't do it with a motor, compressor or an explosion involved it can't (or won't) be done.  :Smilie:  Technology has come along dramatically, but many old skills are being lost which actually a) often do a better job and sometimes faster and b) allow you to actually allow a job to be done that can't be done (or fully done) using machine tools. 
So I too was amused and surprised to read 'you can't secret nail a whole floor . . ." , because amongst other things it means that somehow all those floors I fully secret nailed (and the hundreds done by my Dah too . . .) were somehow a figment of my imagination. Not sure what that means for the owner and users of them . . .  :Wink:  
But of course that was before there was such a thing as a nail gun or even a portable power saw for that matter let alone the powerful cordless tools for _almost every purpose_ we have now - but _not every purpose_. 
Reminds me of the story of appropriate technology - the hugely expensive 'Fisher space pen' used by the NASA in the space program so ink wouldn't go all over the place - the Russians supposedly used pencils!  :Smilie:  An urban legend of course snopes.com: NASA Space Pen see here Space Pen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 
I love all my new gear, but I reckon we need to preserve how to do many things without it too - few of these let us do things we couldn't do before, usually just faster and easier and often safer. Of course adhesives and new designs of fixings and coatings and paints and other materials do allow us to do completely new things, but what we do with our hands and eyes remain the most valuable and useful whether it is with a mechanised and/ or powered tool or a simple hammer, chisel; punch, file, sanding block, awl, saw etc.

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## Larry McCully

I Remember playing with my dads brace and bit , big huge  block plane, Ihated the screw drivers and I hated flat head screws. Spoke shavers,scribes, augers, handsaws that stood a tall as me, wooden handle hammers, drill bits that had tee handles tenant saws, wooden Handle chisels With steel rings on the top, bench grinder That was spun by turning a Handle, folding Ruler and other bits and pieces. All of these tools were my playground as a kid. ILearnt how to pull a block plane apart and understood the blade, tongue and the adjustment system and treated it as a Game. I Was all but a young lad 6 or 8 or there abouts. Now,I Use electricity, ALL HAIL ELECTRICTY. Those Were The Days.. Today It So Fast And Much More Cost Effective. Bright green drills, battery operated everything, bullet powered nail gun, laser ruler, laser level, laser line, all these new tools still need a heart behind them to produce the quality of yester year.

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## VinceS

I have to say the discussion here, while illuminating, interesting and yes an old thread but nevertheless where Google brings us, is a bit misleading re glues. I don't want to start anything here but honestly the term Maxbond is like "sedan" in cars. The CORRECT Max BondTM is "Fastgrip Flooring" being www.hbfuller.com.au@-@Max Bond Fast Grip Concordeâ¢ (for technical details see http://hbfuller.com.au/index2.php?pa...art&Itemid=131 ) Note they recommend using Floorbond XMS for structural and high flex applications, also water based - see www.hbfuller.com.au@-@Floor Bond XMSâ¢ 
The one people refer to here as Max BondTM is the "Construction Adhesive" being www.hbfuller.com.au@-@Max Bondâ¢ Construction Adhesive which might SAY its OK for the job, but like others I find this style of product breaks down over time to become brittle and is basically a one-size-fits-all adhesive that does no job well. The Fastgrip Flooring adhesive is a beauty, FOR FLOORING!!! I also found it was typically 20% cheaper than the equivalent Bostik Ultraset product and easier to use being water based. See Bostik Australia : Construction & Trade - Catalogue - Ultraset Overlay Polyurethane Timber Flooring Adhesive (for technical details see http://bostik.com.au/_upload/ressour...ik__300511.pdf). 
I stuck down 300m2 of yellow tongue and 120m2 of 19mm rosegum on top of it using fastgrip flooring in 2008 and couldn't be happier with how it stuck. And bugger me as an amateur I could still manage to secret nail AND glue everything except didn't bother in cupboards / under skirting which got top nailed. There is nothing that tricky about a nail-punch, really .......!

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