Crank power

With this post I would like to document and share a very handy and useful woodworking technique that I had never seen applied before: I just figured it out on my own... solving the problem of working with a living element like wood that keeps always it's own Soul alive even if it is apparently perfectly machine-cut.

In order to complete the wooden floor that lays on top of those lovely logs that I levelled few months ago, I just applied and perfected the reverse concept of the method explained to handle (straightening and fixing) tapped boards... and using even thicker boards (32mm on top of those 20mm boards of the ceiling).

The top boards lay about 3 degrees off the alignment with the lower ones so that the two layers tighten each other up in groups of 4 or 5 boards across the whole length of the room.

The aimed effect is to get it all nice and sturdy. In order to achieve this, the position of each supporting log is marked with drawing red chalk. It's going to be extremely crucial to be precise because the screws that I am going to use are long enough to pierce through both layers and get into the log.

Whenever a board makes too much resistance fitting into the tapped side of the previous one (which happens pretty much most of the times with boards just slightly bent to twisted), I use this technique:
1) fix a piece of scrap wood screwing it along the red mark;
2) place a tapped piece on the board that needs to be pushed in place;
3) use a crank to apply all the necessary force until every gap disappears;
4) screw the board in place along the red mark.

Hammering the board would be totally useless since it would just bounce back, instead this technique keeps the piece in place and allows you to fix it with a screw without any effort. I am very proud of this method because it simply works great... Check it out!!!