Hardwood flooring

[Rob]

I am relatively new to woodworking.  Has anyone used hardwood flooring as material? I have access to scrap hardwood flooring. My wife works as an accountant for a hardwood floor installer. I have been dumpster diving for years but typically used the wood for my fire pit. I started thinking that maybe I could buy a planner and mill down the planks.  The problem is that the wood is really hard. I am thinking the material may dull blades and not be very good to work with. Any ideas, comments or suggestions?

[Eric.]

If it's finished flooring the finish will dull the blades with a quickness.  You'll also be left with pretty thin material so unless you just want to build little boxes and other small projects, they won't be of much use.

Get out of the dumpster and head to the hardwood dealer.

[wtnhighlander]

+1 on what Eric said. Even unfinished hardwood flooring seems harder than the same species from other sources. And true 'solid' flooring is getting more rare every year. Its pretty sad when even 'tavern grade' oak flooring is a 3 ply lamination, rather than solid boards.

[Rob]

The material is unfinished typically 3/4 inch.  A lot of maple and oak.  They sell some exotic woods too but not as often as the maple, oak, hickory.  The place she works for is pretty high end.  

[wdwerker]

You could resaw it into book matched veneers and lay up panels for slightly larger pieces of furniture. This would let you feature the grain on the most interesting boards and could result in a crazy quilt like appearance.. Remember to veneer both sides for balanced construction. 

[Stobes21]

I made Marc's toy box for last year's woodworkers fighting cancer build out of leftover unfinished red oak boards from when I put some in my house. Worked fine for that since I didn't need wide boards and the grooves could all be faced in.

Of course, that was pretty much a bunch of frame and panels with chalkboard ply as the panels. Other types of furniture would be hard. But there are some definite options:

rails and stiles (as mentioned above)

drawer stock (mill grooves out and you have ~1/2" thickness), may have to glue up a couple for wider drawer sides

Picture frames

small boxes

lay some down on top of 3/4" ply for countertops on shop cabinets

story sticks/spacer boards

rip a 45* angle and use for french cleats

[collinp2]

I happened to have a ton of white oak flooring taking up space in my garage and decided to build a benchtop out of it.  It was a total pain, but in the end I think milling up 2x12 pine would have been pretty tedious as well.  I'm ending up with a 3 5/8" benchtop in the end.  Using leftover Sapele from another projecct as the front and back laminate since I didn't quite have enough to get the width I wanted.   The bench is still in progress, but the tops are done.  I flattened the backs with the planer before glue up.  Had I not already had it wasting space, I never would have gone this route... but it can be done!

[JMichalak]

I used to make tiny boxes from maple flooring scraps and some leftover cambera decking leftover from an addition I worked on... Once you mill the T&G off, it's pretty narrow, but you can use your imagination...