Solid board

The modern massive board comes from two floor coverings that were widespread in the past: floor boards and piece parquet . In appearance, a massive board most resembles a floorboard, only in a shorter and wider version. In addition, hardwoods are commonly used for massive boards ^[1] , including exotic ones, while the floorboard was made from the most affordable raw materials with high stability requirements. In the temperate latitudes of the Old World, these are, first of all, conifers - spruce , pine , larch . Coniferous wood, as a rule, is much softer than hardwood, they easily leave traces of solid objects, but they are slightly susceptible to cracking and warping ^[2]

Despite the resemblance to the floorboard, a functionally massive board is fundamentally different from it. Massive board - finishing flooring, fair floor. For its laying, a foundation ^{[3] is} necessary, bearing all the structural loads. In this way, it is close to piece parquet - the traditional flooring of the 19th – 20th centuries, small planks of valuable wood, primarily oak, laid on top of a concrete or plank base on bitumen mastic and similar adhesives.

Thus, a massive board is an enlarged piece parquet, the dimensions of which are close to the dimensions of the floor board. Large sizes make it possible to more fully reveal the natural beauty of a tree - the pattern of tree rings, color differences allowed by the assortment, etc. Unlike a floorboard, a massive board is almost never tinted tightly. The applied paints are applied so that the natural pattern of the wood remains visible.

A massive board is a homogeneous rectangular board made of solid wood of certain sizes. At the ends, a massive board is milled with a tongue-and-groove connecting profile. To relieve internal stresses, longitudinal cuts are made on the back of the massive board - rests.

Massive board is fixed and combined length. In the packaging of a massive board of fixed length, all floorboards are of the same length (for example, 900 mm). Such a board is called single-length. To save material and create a more interesting pattern, a massive board of combined length is produced on the floor. In the packaging of a massive board of combined length there is at least one floorboard of full length (for example, 1600 mm) and a certain number of shortened floorboards (for example, 300, 400, 600, 800 mm). Such a board is called diverse.

The minimum dimensions of a massive board are 90-100 mm wide and 900 mm long (300-900 mm for a different-length board, where 300 mm is the length of the shortest die and 900 mm is the longest). The thickness of a massive board is usually 18-22 mm, although lately 16 and even 15 mm have appeared on the Russian market.

The solid board is coated with a protective layer of oil, varnish or wax oil at the factory.

Varnish coating . Traditionally, parquet was covered with varnish, oil or wax after laying ^[4] . Today, the vast majority of massive boards come already with a protective layer. To accelerate drying and create the thinnest and most transparent layer, special varnishes with ultraviolet curing (UV varnishes) are used. The lacquer coating is strong and durable, but does not provide for local repair. In case of partial wear, it is necessary to grind and re-varnish the entire floor.

Oil . Natural oil impregnates the top layer of wood, but does not create a separate protective film. To the touch, a board soaked in oil is indistinguishable from a board without coating. An important advantage of a board coated with natural oil is the possibility of local repair. It is enough to clean the damaged area and re-coat with oil, and the floors are ready for use. The disadvantage of coating with oil is its fragility ^[5] . Oil coating must be renewed with a frequency from once a quarter to once a year ^[6] . Any spilled liquid is absorbed into the wood and requires special efforts to remove it.

Oil wax . A mixture of natural oil with paraffins. The most traditional kind of protective coating, inheriting wax mastics of the past. It is actually a compromise between the varnish and the oil coating, creating a protective film that is short-lived but easily renewable.

Quite often, a massive board is delivered without any special treatments, just sanded and coated with a protective layer of varnish or oil. However, today most of the manufacturers' assortment is made up of a massive board with one or another decorative treatment or a combination of treatments. Many of them are aimed at creating the effect of wear, floors with history. The main types of processing are listed below:

Toning . Covering the board with one or more coats of paint. As a rule, the layers of paint are thin enough to preserve the natural pattern of wood, or are applied in combination with brushing: the recesses of the board are tinted with one color, elevations with a different color, the same color of lower intensity or not tinted at all. The main function of toning is to give the board a new color, in combination with other treatments - emphasizing the natural pattern of wood.

Brushing . The most common way to create a raised surface of the floor. Most wood species of temperate latitudes have annual rings, while the dark part of the ring is softer, and the light part is harder. Using special metal brushes, manufacturers of massive boards choose soft fibers from the surface of the board, creating a relief that follows the pattern of tree rings. Brushing is popular right away for several reasons: the board is given an aged, historical look; emphasizes its naturalness, naturalness; the ability to create interesting contrasting decors.

Planing . The surface of the board is covered with uneven waves, left as if from sloppy work with a plane. The board is given a characteristic appearance, as if it had been polished by many generations of users. Visually, an interesting play of light and shadow attracts attention.

Sawing . The surface of the board is covered with shallow transverse cuts. Quite a rare treatment, more popular in Europe than in Russia.

Sandblasting . Sandblasting . The result resembles brushing with the difference that the surface is polished (and at the same time embossed), and the relief itself is larger, without small details characteristic of brushing. Most often used for wood species with a large pattern of tree rings, such as elm.

Aging Giving the flooring the effect of wear different from the methods listed above, in particular - applying serifs on the surface and on the chamfers of the flooring.

Massive board and parquet board

Parquet board is an engineering structure in which only the top layer consists of valuable wood (oak, walnut, ash, merbau, etc.). The rest of the structure is made of less valuable but more stable softwood, plywood or HDF (high density fiberboard).

Massive board and piece parquet

A massive board differs from piece parquet, first of all, in size. Piece parquet, as a rule, does not exceed 70 mm in width, 500 mm in length and 16 mm in thickness. Further, piece parquet is made only in fixed sizes. This allows you to lay out piece parquet with different geometric patterns (Hungarian Christmas tree, French tree, Sheremetyevo laying, etc.). Unlike a massive board, piece parquet is usually delivered without a factory coating and is varnished or oiled after laying and compulsory grinding.

Massive board and supermassive board

The supermassive board (massive engineering board, anti-deformation board), although it is made of the same wood species, is an engineering structure.

Massive board and floor board (floor board)

A traditional floor board (floor board) differs from a massive board in purpose and size. The traditional floorboard combines the functions of the supporting structure and the finishing, finishing floor. The floor board is laid on the logs (transverse bars located at a distance from each other). As a rule, a floor board is much narrower than a massive board, which is necessary to prevent deformation when humidity and temperature change. In length, the floorboard can reach several meters. The floorboard is delivered without factory coating and is varnished or oil after laying. Typically, a floorboard has greater moisture tolerance tolerances than the required 8-12% for a solid board.

Unlike a floor board, a massive board is a finishing material and is laid on a specially prepared rough floor - plywood or directly on a concrete base (not recommended). A massive board is usually wider, but shorter than a traditional floor board.

Benefits

• Naturalness. The massive board is made of natural wood, and from a solid mass of wood. In other words, a massive board is a piece of wood, large in size, properly dried and processed.
• Durability. Most manufacturers give a guarantee for the structural integrity of a massive board for 50 years. However, the protective coating (varnish or oil) needs to be updated from time to time.
• Environmental friendliness. A massive board is not an engineering structure. For its manufacture phenol-formaldehyde and other dangerous artificial resins are not used.

Weaknesses

• The difficulty of laying. A massive board requires complex professional styling using glue, plywood and self-tapping screws ^[7] .
• Moodiness. Wood is moody material. Changes in temperature and humidity can lead to cracking and deformation, tearing the floor from the base. The larger the size of the massive board (especially the width), the greater the internal stress on it.

Bamboo flooring

A massive board is conventionally classified as a bamboo flooring made in the form of a massive board. Bamboo is grass, and the flooring made of it is an engineering structure. However, in appearance, installation method and operational characteristics, the bamboo flooring resembles a classic massive board.

By the method of production, there are three varieties of bamboo flooring:

• Vertical bamboo board
• Horizontal bamboo board
• Pressed (homogeneous, reinforced) bamboo board

The most common flooring is horizontal bamboo. A horizontal bamboo board is a block of individual pressed stems glued together. In a horizontal bamboo board, the structure of bamboo stems with characteristic darker knots is clearly distinguished. An even, calm color close to the color of natural oak and a significantly lower price make horizontal bamboo an affordable alternative to a classic massive oak board.

Less common is vertical bamboo. The production method and its operational characteristics are close to horizontal bamboo, but the layers of bamboo are directed not horizontally, but vertically. Nodes of the stems are not visible, the pattern is more fractional and monotonous.

High performance extruded bamboo flooring. In the production of pressed bamboo, fiber bundles are pressed under high pressure without the use of formaldehyde and other unhealthy artificial resins.

According to the manufacturers, its hardness is several times higher than the hardness of oak, and its resistance to changes in humidity and temperature is such that it can be laid in small rooms in a floating way (like a parquet board).

Heat treatment of raw materials at different temperatures allows you to get several colors at the output without the use of dyes: from light wood to rich brown. The combination in one floorboard of fibers that have gone through a different level of heat treatment allows you to get a unique tiger pattern that resembles rare zebrano and tiger wood.

Benefits of Bamboo Flooring

• Low price (vertical and horizontal bamboo)
• Easy and affordable laying (pressed bamboo)
• Several times harder than oak (pressed bamboo) ^[8]

Disadvantages of Bamboo Flooring

• Not polishable
• A board made of vertical and horizontal bamboo has low hardness and is easily damaged.
• Unpredictable behavior. Sometimes a board made of bamboo can easily tolerate prolonged exposure to moisture, and sometimes vice versa - under ideal microclimatic conditions, it can crack along glued and pressed fibers

Custom size and shape board

The usual massive board is a rectangular shape of a fixed width. However, on the market there is also a curved-shaped board and combined in width.

In a pack of boards combined in width (wide boards), there are boards of different widths, for example, 90, 100 and 120 mm. The use of boards of different widths allows you to create the effect of the antique floor of a certain style.

The direction of the fibers in natural wood is never completely straightforward. At the same time, a traditional massive board is a combination of straight lines and right angles. To make the massive board even more “natural”, some manufacturers switched to the manufacture of curved boards, the shape of which follows the direction of wood fibers. Curved board is a rare variety of massive premium board.

With rare exceptions, a massive board is laid in a hard-fixed way (on glue). Before laying a massive board, a carefully prepared base is necessary - a strong and dry cement screed, on top of which sheets of plywood (usually sawn) are laid.

The massive board is laid on the base with glue using parquet screws or, less commonly, parquet studs. The function of parquet screws is to fix the flooring until the glue is completely dry. For laying the board, polyurethane and epoxy-polyurethane adhesives are used. For these purposes, water-dispersion adhesives and adhesives based on synthetic resins are categorically not suitable. Compliance with the installation conditions is critical: a flat floor, a certain temperature and humidity, screeds and wood. Violation of any of these conditions can lead to deformation of the floor covering (warping, cracks) or tearing it off the base.

Some manufacturers allow laying a massive board in a floating way (without glue). For laying a massive board in a floating way today, two main methods are used. The first is the profiling of the castle joints, as on a parquet board. The laying technology exactly matches the laying of the parquet board. This method is applicable to pressed bamboo flooring. Another way is to use special metal brackets inserted into the cuts made on the back of the board.

The main disadvantage of this installation method is the potential fragility, the risk of creaks and crevices. The metal from which the staples are made is a much harder and stronger material than wood. As a result of constant loads, the staples begin to push through the wood, which leads to the appearance of backlashes, gives the floor elements unnecessary mobility. A massive board laid in a floating way is almost impossible to repair properly (sanded and repainted with varnish, oil or oil with hard wax).

• Parquet
• Parquet board
• Laminated flooring

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