Filling Gaps In Old Wood Floors With Rope

3 if desired tint rope with wood stain to match floor.

Filling gaps in old wood floors with rope.

2 vacuum floor clean of all dust and debris. A smooth cotton rope stuffed into the gap loaded with carpenters glue will stick very well. Be sure to use. If your gap is truly wide enough to even consider filling it with rope and the gaps don t close up in summer use cork instead.

An old but popular method for filling large gaps requires rope. Set the angled tip of the tube into the gap and pull the trigger. The old school way i have seen to fill large gaps in wide plank flooring is with rope. 1 scrape debris from between flooring planks with putty knife or painter s tool.

In this video this old house contractor tom silva explains how to fill gaps in a wide plank wood floor. You can use rope as a way to fill up a big crack and then just top up with filler so you don t have to use as much filler but the filler itself will still crack and fall out over time. How to fill floorboard gaps with rope. While the rope doesn t look like wood you can stain it to blend with the floorboards and the filled gaps will be much less noticeable than the dark empty gaps.

Then place a section of rope on top of the gap and use your fingers a 5 in 1 painter s tool a plastic spackling knife or a similar tool to gently press the rope into the gap. 4 force rope into gap between planks with putty knife or painter s tool. 1 scrape debris from between flooring planks with putty knife or painter s tool. Before you begin filling gaps in old wood floors with caulk make sure you have properly inserted the tube into a standard caulk gun.

2 vacuum floor clean of all dust and debris. Repeat for each gap. It should help the filler to go in between the boards a bit more evenly. Avoid synthetic rope and wedge it into place.

Filling floor cracks with lengths of rope might seem strange but ropes made from natural cotton or jute are stainable flexible and they adjust to changing humidity along with the floor. Not only will it be expensive but you will find it will crack out in just about a year due to the seasonal movements of the old floor boards. As to filling the gaps don t use some sort of wood filler. This method harkens back to the days of arabian shipbuilding techniques and has an added bonus of providing some minor insulation.

As with using pieces of wood you will want to measure the rope to fit. Now that your rope is stained and dry use a utility knife to cut it into segments equal to the length of the gaps you want to fill. 3 if desired tint rope with wood stain to match floor. Filling large gaps with natural fiber rope is a traditional method commonly used on wide plank floorboards in very old homes.