Wilsonart repair

[highup]

Fun one. I need to do a repair in a Wilsonart bamboo look laminate. Only material left over is two stair treads. It's a large room that has an open layout and lots of light coming in.
The customer removed a stair case near one end of the room and removing it left two voids in the floor about 6 feet out from an end wall. It's gonna be hard to make this invisible.
I'm thinking of making a jig around the rectangular voids in the floor, then run a router on all 4 sides to true up the edges, then make the inset repair pieces out of the two stair treads.
The larger repair is 26 inches or so wide, so it will take 3 pieces to make up that repair.
I can spline the first repair section on all 4 sides of the repair, then glue it up then slide the repair section horizontally into place.
The next two sections set next to the first one will need to be rabbit type insets.
A jig made around the perimeter to true up the laminate edges will have to be dead on square and parallel if I have a chance to make these repair pieces fit.
The router will leave rounded corners to deal with. I think I can hand shape those.
Any suggestions other than run Forest run?

 

[highup]

Rusty, maybe you can sleep on this one for me.

 

[Floorist]

I would not even attempt that job. Good luck.

 

[Ernesto]

The customer removed a stair case near one end of the room and removing it left two voids in the floor about 6 feet out from an end wall. It's gonna be hard to make this invisible.]

Customer should have thought about that. I recommend total floor replacement since they have no planks left.

 

[highup]

House is probably 10 years old, laminate looks like new and the owner is new.
It would cost a chunk of change to replace it all. There's also 14 stair treads leading up to the main floor of the home.
I'm thinking of having the paint store mix up some colorant to match the bamboo color and use epoxy (mixed with colorant) on the end joints. I'm sure I can make the patch pretty close, but if there's some minuscule gaps, the epoxy will help.
I'm thinking of buying a Porter Cable 960LR for the job. My antique Craftsman hasn't got tight enough bearings and I don't think my offset laminate trimmer has a good design to work with a template.
Maybe my 6' and 4' straight edges would make the two long sides of the 'template' or guide and I could cut two pieces of 2" wide 1/4" thick aluminum for the short sides...... a couple dabs of hot glue will hold em in place then I can release them with rubbing alcohol when done.

 

[highup]

I splurged and bought the router. Needed a decent one anyway to replace the bulky and sloppy old Craftsman. Lot's of things you can't or won't do if you got a POS router. Now I need to build the router an inset that fits into my table saw table so that I can make use of this powerful lil' bugger.

 

[DarisMulkin]

What kind of router did you buy?

Daris

 

[highup]

A decent one.

 

[highup]

Porter Cable 690. https://www.grainger.com/product/3UB91&AL!2966!3!166592031543!!!s!82166263197!?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgouls__b1QIVxV5-Ch2eQwvcEAQYAiABEgI-8fD_BwE&cm_mmc=PPC:+Google+PLA?campaignid=719692545&s_kwcid=AL!2966!3!166592031543!!!!82166263197!&ef_id=WYPPigAAAUdGtRGW:20170816150852:s
I bought it locally for $176.
I've used my offset laminate trimmer for jobs that really should have used something more powerful. Now I have under kill and overkill.

 

[highup]

I believe the older models had a nut and needed wrenches to loosen the height adjustment collar. If mounted under a table, this would be easier to adjust with that lever. I guess some other routers are a lot easier to adjust from the top side of the table. I read a lot of reviews and decided on this one. Sort of the industry standard. I guess this model was first introduced when Daris was a little boy.

 

[Floorist]

I believe the older models had a nut and needed wrenches to loosen the height adjustment collar. If mounted under a table, this would be easier to adjust with that lever. I guess some other routers are a lot easier to adjust from the top side of the table. I read a lot of reviews and decided on this one. Sort of the industry standard. I guess this model was first introduced when Daris was a little boy.

That is why they call it horsepower.

 

[highup]

That is why they call it horsepower.

You sayin' when Daris was a boy routers were powered by leather belts run off of overhead pulleys, driven by horses?
Man than must have been a pain to take to a job site.

 

[DarisMulkin]

You sayin' when Daris was a boy routers were powered by leather belts run off of overhead pulleys, driven by horses?
Man than must have been a pain to take to a job site.

Naw, mine were steam powered. The bitch was finding enough wood to burn. Damned beavers. :machine gun:

Daris

 

[highup]

Gaining on my router lift and curious about the repair details. Only glued in repairs I have done were from a couple boards out from a wall. Those repairs meant removing a few boards, cleaning up the edges, routing a groove in the old planks and installing a spline, then gluing in the replacement boards just like was done on the original installation. A reminder, the procedure I just mentioned was the old school Wilsonart before locking floors came out.
OK, the floor repair I'm gonna attempt (eventually) is an inset. It will consist of cutting up a one piece Wilsonart stair tread into 3 pieces and "implanting" the pieces into a void out in the middle of the existing floor.
That means re-sizing the laminate and routing grooves and lap joints from scratch. Look at page one for a refresher. I'll need to make the void in the floor perfectly square with the router, then fill the void with scratch built pieces.

OK, so here's the questions I'm getting to............
After squaring up the void in the floor, I figured to groove/spline one long side of the repair. I'll have to make lap joints on the other edges. I've never done a lap joint on a laminate job. I do have a Wilsonart wing bit.
I'm wondering on how wide the laps needs to be, to be strong.
The wing bit depth isn't very much, so I'm wondering if a wider lap joint is better............ If so, how wide it too wide? I'd be cutting the lap joints with the router so I can make them as wide as I want.
In the second image, I'm wondering about how tight to make the lower part of the lap joint......... a 1/32nd inch for excess glue to ooze out of?

 

[highup]

One other thing I don't know. Is the thickness of the older glue together Wilsonart plank flooring the same as the later/newer lock together stuff. It doesn't make any difference on this job, but I'm just pondering the joint strength if the newer materials are thinner. The home is about 10 years old, so this must have been near the end of Wilsonart's laminate production.

 

[highup]

Just an update.... Customer is back in town for the next month and a half and still wants me do this repair.
I'd still like some input if anyone has an answer on the last image I posted here..about the width of the lip on a lap joint.
There is a utility closet where I can remove one 42" plank. That would be enough for the repairs.
The only flooring they have for this repair are two leftover stair treads.
Here's a better look at what I want to do.
Originally I was thinking about making up the repair pieces totally from scratch using the two leftover one-piece stair treads and using a combination of spline and lap joints.
Now, using one plank from the closet, I can use the original locking joints in the width and just need to machine the upper and lower joints using a lap joint.

Back to my question........ how wide should I make the lap joints?
3/16", 1/4", 5/16" ?

 

[highup]

Just an update.... Customer is back in town for the next month and a half and still wants me do this repair.
I'd still like some input if anyone has an answer on the last image I posted here..about the width of the lip on a lap joint.
There is a utility closet where I can remove one 42" plank. That would be enough for the repairs.
The only flooring they have for this repair are two leftover stair treads.
Here's a better look at what I want to do.
Originally I was thinking about making up the repair pieces totally from scratch using the two leftover one-piece stair treads and using a combination of spline and lap joints.
Now, using one plank from the closet, I can use the original locking joints and just need to machine the upper and lower joints using a lap joint.
Pattern obviously goes N/S.

Back to my question........ how wide should I make the lap joints?
3/16", 1/4", 5/16" ?View attachment 7736

 

[Ernesto]

Ya got me stumped.

 

[highup]

I thought you have done everything............. sheesh, now whatamIgonnado?
I looked but can't find any info on Wilsonart glue down materials from days gone by. I can't even find info on their click lock or Tap-N-lock products.
Those Wislonart instruction/installation PDFs ought to be floating around out there on the internet somewhere.......... right?

 

[Nick]

This is there Official site Hi ..
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