How do you fit your underlayment.

[highup]

Got lucky as the underlayment was 8 ft and 1/4 inch long and from behind the toilet to under the cabinet was 8 feet an 3/8 inches.
If I can figure out a way to make the piece fit I'm sure as hell not going to cut it in half just to make it easier to install. One less seam is one less seam, especially with this crappy quarter inch "underlayment grade" plywood. I probably had a 16th of an inch gap all the way around the walls and slightly less on the seam. I make a pattern exactly the same as you would if you're installing vinyl and then I just cut it a tad less than my markings.
This one fit too perfectly so I took it back outside and trimmed a 16th of an inch off one wall by the toilet using a belt sander.
If there's something that makes a not drop into place in one piece, I'll just pattern out the entire board, then cut those areas out with a sharp jigsaw blade with no curf, and then reinstall the pieces after I drop the big piece in place. I undercut the door casings so I needed to notch out both of those and of course it wouldn't drop in place into the toilet supply faucet.area, so I notched that out too. For kicks and giggles I put a quarter inch bead of latex caulking around the perimeter walls around that toilet area before dropping the piece in place. I also put a bead around the toilet hole.

 

[Jon]

Maybe not much choice in an area like that. I like to put factory edge against factory edge if possible instead of a saw cut and out of sight like having to look along a join like moving it to one side
We dont use much ply here we use MDF which moves a bit from the moisture in the vinyl glue which could show if you leave a slight gap on the joins and doesnt sand nicely

 

[highup]

The underlayment doesn't sand all that well anyway because the top layer is a few thousandths of an inch thick and the glue underneath it is very brittle. Iy chips really easy when you cut it. To avoid the chips, I do a lot of cutting with the jigsaw blade made by Lennox. It has no kerf and tiny sharp teeth. It's designed for plastics and things that you don't want any chip out on.
Worst case scenario is if somehow you make a piece like this and it doesn't fit into the room, you can always take the jigsaw and cut part of the underlayment in half and the seam will go back together quite nicely and you've only lost the thickness of the blade which again is very narrow.
The floor got a skim coat with floor patch before I left about 7:00 tonight and it will be ready for the Maroleum tomorrow.
I first showed up this job a good week and a half ago I think. The shop has had me doing measures for carpeting and other materials and so there's a number of days I haven't made it down to the job to do anything. This job was perfect because with no one living in the home, it's allowed me to get other stuff done without my crap, I mean my tools, disturbing someone's living situation. I'll get to floor done tomorrow and get the metal cove cap installed. If I get lucky I might even get some of the material on the walls.
It's been one interesting job to say the least that I'm finally at a point where it looks like it's going to get done. Yay!

 

[highup]

Well I'm finally going to get this job wrapped up. I've had a couple of job measures that needed to be done and took a couple days off.
I've got the piece with the outside corner completed and I use my table saw to miter the corners. I just sandwiched the piece between two pieces of 5/8 plywood to make the miter cuts. Many many many many years ago (that's 30), my brother bought a cutter for outside corners. They come out so much nicer than anything you could do with the hacksaw and file. I put a half inch band of clear epoxy on the corners then held them in place with blue tape overnight. Worked out pretty nice. Now if we can just keep the customer and their guests from kicking them.

 

[highup]

Fitting the wall pieces tight to the floor was a slow process but once he got it figured out it turns out really nice. I made a vertical wall scribe Jon. I bet you don't have one of these fancy tools. The trick, is the orange tape.
You fit each wall piece for length and leave it a little bit tall, tape the piece to wall in a few places and this little slicer, dicer tool puts a light cut in the lino 1/4" off the floor, and it's just deep enough to follow with a razor knife once you pull it off the wall.
It fits really tight to the floor so I'm not going to need any caulking but I do have a tube of silicone caulk and I'm tempted to put a tiny bead in front of the tub. Is a colored silicone grout caulk by Laticrete.
It doesn't need it, but the customer might like seeing it just for peace of mind.
I hauled out most of my tools last night since all the pieces are cut and fit, but by the time I do my cleanup, is probably going to eat up most of my day. With all the wood cutting that I've done since I started this job I'm going to wipe down all the surfaces, do a bunch of vacuuming including the garage where I did all the plywood cutting. It's clean now but I want to make it look like I was never there.

 

[Jon]

Thats why I would never do it as an up stand last as its too slow and hard to do. If the floor is wavy I would use a pencil to get the worst of the waviness then use the floor material to hide any gaps
Have you tried these hook blades as they are very good at following the cuts in materials, very good at cutting off slithers where the vinyl is a fraction tight, seem to under cut slightly. With garage carpet one blade will last for days
https://www.lookfloors.co.nz/product/9113/18mm-hooked-snap-off-blades-10-per-pkt

 

[Jon]

Well I'm finally going to get this job wrapped up. I've had a couple of job measures that needed to be done and took a couple days off.
I've got the piece with the outside corner completed and I use my table saw to miter the corners. I just sandwiched the piece between two pieces of 5/8 plywood to make the miter cuts. Many many many many years ago (that's 30), my brother bought a cutter for outside corners. They come out so much nicer than anything you could do with the hacksaw and file. I put a half inch band of clear epoxy on the corners then held them in place with blue tape overnight. Worked out pretty nice. Now if we can just keep the customer and their guests from kicking them.

Did that capping strip cover the Marmo slightly or was it one of those with a but finish?

 

[highup]

Did that capping strip cover the Marmo slightly or was it one of those with a but finish?

Not sure what you mean.
The cap is like this but with a smaller/narrower gap that fits the thickness of the Marmoleum.
https://www.tools4flooring.com/futura-1-8-silver-square-metal-cove-cap-12-length.htmlYes, fitting was time consuming.
If I did the walls first, and then fit the floor material to the walls......
If after installing, it shrunk back in a tad I'd have to caulk it.
I did the floor first. It fit perfectly.
After gluing, the ends did shrink back a tiny bit. Had I done the walls first, this would need some caulking.
After my experience with this I would never ....and I mean never, do the walls first.
If somehow the fitment of a 3 ft piece of marmoleum on the wall was not exactly as I'd like I could either rescribe it, or cut another piece. Why chance having a gap on an 8-ft piece long piece of material.
Should I make the floor piece .008 thousandths too tight to compensate for shrinkage, or .028 thousandths too tight?
I think it's nuts to fitting the wall picked first.
If I did Marmoleum or another brand of linoleum day in, day out, I might be able to predict it's behavior and fit the way you do.
In this install, there isn't a single inch anywhere around the perimeter of that room that you could slide a piece of notebook paper under. It's snug all the way around.
I'd never do it differently.
The only thing I didn't like about the installation, was the visual color difference
The wall under the heater looked a different color. Had the material been self coved, I think the gradual upturn in the material would have disguised the visual color difference.
I tried laying the material grain the correct orientation, then played it the wrong direction....... Side by side, they looked exactly the same.
Other than that, it came out sweet.
I wiped down every surface with a damp rag, vacuumed my way out of the house, so it's a done deal.

 

[highup]

Here's a couple images and it shows how light the piece on the wall looks compared with the floor. I'm not a magician so they got what they got. The issue with that light color difference on the wall is because there is a window directly behind where I'm standing. It shines and reflects off the shiny surface of the Marmo. The light doesn't reflect off the floor in the same manner.
My camera makes it look worse than it is but I don't know if there's anything I can do to make my camera see differently.

 

[Jon]

Not sure what you mean.
The cap is like this but with a smaller/narrower gap that fits the thickness of the Marmoleum.
https://www.tools4flooring.com/futura-1-8-silver-square-metal-cove-cap-12-length.htmlYes, fitting was time consuming.
If I did the walls first, and then fit the floor material to the walls......
If after installing, it shrunk back in a tad I'd have to caulk it.
I did the floor first. It fit perfectly.
After gluing, the ends did shrink back a tiny bit. Had I done the walls first, this would need some caulking.
After my experience with this I would never ....and I mean never, do the walls first.
If somehow the fitment of a 3 ft piece of marmoleum on the wall was not exactly as I'd like I could either rescribe it, or cut another piece. Why chance having a gap on an 8-ft piece long piece of material.
Should I make the floor piece .008 thousandths too tight to compensate for shrinkage, or .028 thousandths too tight?
I think it's nuts to fitting the wall picked first.
If I did Marmoleum or another brand of linoleum day in, day out, I might be able to predict it's behavior and fit the way you do.
In this install, there isn't a single inch anywhere around the perimeter of that room that you could slide a piece of notebook paper under. It's snug all the way around.
I'd never do it differently.
The only thing I didn't like about the installation, was the visual color difference
The wall under the heater looked a different color. Had the material been self coved, I think the gradual upturn in the material would have disguised the visual color difference.
I tried laying the material grain the correct orientation, then played it the wrong direction....... Side by side, they looked exactly the same.
Other than that, it came out sweet.
I wiped down every surface with a damp rag, vacuumed my way out of the house, so it's a done deal.

Yes that strip covers the Marmo
The job looks good
Did you preshrink the Marmo first? Also you can cut the Marmo in tight on the ends then force the Marmo into its self to get a tight finish
Another thing you get every now and then when the the Marmo is exposed to the air when opened for awhile is the beginning of the roll going a lighter colour due to the oxidation in the air think that the word, but it does come right over time
At least it seems you havent had to deal with a center buckle

 

[highup]

No center buckle. I dealt with it on my first Marmo install, 20 some years ago. Wasn't a huge deal.
If this bathroom was something I was doing 20 some years ago, I might consider doing the walls first. I was very familiar with fitting Armstrong Corlons like Seagate and Brigantine so I could have done it with those materials.
I can think offhand, I have done 5 Marmo installations...... In my life. I'm not willing to practice on jobs like this and my previous one. I know my limitations, so I do what I do at my own comfort or confidence level.
If I had a half dozen jobs to do in the near future, and each one would have base installed afterwards, I could experiment with fitting the ends tight and, or, reverse rolling the material to shrink it, I'd gain confidence in working with Linoleum. That's just not going to happen.
Customer is going to be so thrilled...... They'll probably want the other bathroom done.
I'm hoping not.
.....it doesn't have a rotten floor, but the wall pieces are loose and the outside corners are opened up. That's because of the wood movement of the cedar walls.

 

[Jon]

highup another couple of thoughts
Did you back roll the Marmo tightly and leave rolled up for a long time?
Did the Marmo fit before you glued it?
I presume you pulled back the Marmo end for end to go it?

 

[highup]

The marmo was laid out flat on the living room rug for over a week I rolled it sharply corner to corner a couple of times to eliminate the roll curl. I never did back roll it and leave it set for any period of time to compress it.
It fit tightly on the end wall prior to gluing it and yes I glued it one half then the other. I didn't give the adhesive any flash time because this was on skim coated plywood.
For the last few days before I glued the material down I turned the temperature in the house up to about 68 or 70°. This is a second home so the people have the thermostat set closer to 60 while they're not there.

 

[Jon]

The marmo was laid out flat on the living room rug for over a week I rolled it sharply corner to corner a couple of times to eliminate the roll curl. I never did back roll it and leave it set for any period of time to compress it.
It fit tightly on the end wall prior to gluing it and yes I glued it one half then the other. I didn't give the adhesive any flash time because this was on skim coated plywood.
For the last few days before I glued the material down I turned the temperature in the house up to about 68 or 70°. This is a second home so the people have the thermostat set closer to 60 while they're not there.

How did I know these things when I wasnt even there?
By preshrinking helps it from shrinking when you roll it up to get into the room in the room, also when you pull back the Marmo end for end it to glue it it could shrink again. We tried to tube the Marmo instead of pulling it back end to end. Every time you pull the Marmo back onto its self it could shrink further

 

[highup]

You're scaring me to. I'll wait til they make a stabil Marmoleum with fiberglass instead of burlap.
Grandpa and I had some vinyl Corlon with 35 foot runs.... maybe longer.... It was 1977.
The quarry tile pattern was an inch off from one roll. Armstrong didn't like you backrolling the goods, but we did anyway. I think we bavkrolled the long price and let it dry for an hour while we ate lunch.
I'll be darned...... Came out pretty close to matching.

 

[Jon]

I told you right from the beginning pre shrink the Marmo to make it shrink
From what I remember Marmo didnt want you to back roll it either but hey if it works for a better job I will keep on preshrinking the Marmo along with a lot of other products. These fibre glass/plastic backings dont shrink of which we got ourselves into trouble when they first came out as we cut them in too tight expecting to be able to push the walls down first shrinking the vinyl into them selves making us cut tiny bits off. it was basically learning to lay vinyl all over again. The plastic backed domestic type vinyls would not cove especially safety floors if the floor wasnt flat as you would have to pleat the cove where as the asbestos backed vinyls would just follow the humps sitting nicely into the cove. Seen some walk in showers where the layers have had to pleat each wall to get a nicely formed cove at the floor line along with no "bubbles" on the walls
You mentioned about patterns been off. think about it the vinyl is hot when the factory rolls it up starting with a small wrap around the core then getting larger/stretched as the roll gets to the finished length Now if you say had 3 drops off 3 different new rolls you could find the match would be pretty good as each roll would be rolled up equally from where each of the drops come from, make sense? Been there done that on real large jobs to us in the old days

 

[highup]

The area grandpa and I did was almost square, so laying it the "short way" wasn't in the deck.
That's probably the only time I ever backrolled material..... yup, just once, and over 45 years ago.
This inst something I really have any experience with, so when I think of backrolling material, it would be more for eliminating curl.
In a piece 7' 8" long, I just didn't know how much effect this would have. I also had no idea if, in a piece this short, if the material would shrink when glued.
I'm just chalking this up to a learning experience.

 

[Jon]

The area grandpa and I did was almost square, so laying it the "short way" wasn't in the deck.
That's probably the only time I ever backrolled material..... yup, just once, and over 45 years ago.
This inst something I really have any experience with, so when I think of backrolling material, it would be more for eliminating curl.
In a piece 7' 8" long, I just didn't know how much effect this would have. I also had no idea if, in a piece this short, if the material would shrink when glued.
I'm just chalking this up to a learning experience.

Gee this is hard work
The idea of preshrinking/ back rolling is that you get the material to shrink before you cut it NOT cut it then preshrink it

 

[highup]

Guess why I install carpet?
Since Pergo came out 25+ years ago, it's a rare day when sheet goods get installed. Vinyl goes in commercial buildings and hospitals. Not very often in homes.

 

[Jon]

Thats why I thought I would try and help you
Vinyl has dropped off here with ceramic tiles, of which people find too cold along with hard to walk on compared to vinyl
Also laminate has got a market share. Carpet tiles go into office blocks
Still hard to find a lino layer, plenty of carpet layers dime a dozen along with laminate guys