[AT] OT Barn floor question (wood block)

charles bridges bridgescharles at bellsouth.net
Thu Oct 21 06:07:02 PDT 2004


When I was working as a truck driver I saw lots of floors in auto plants,
paper plants, and things like that.  It is amazing how much abuse these will
take.  They ran big heavy fork lifts and other equipment on them without any
damage.  'The only one I ever saw with any damage was one that the roof had
leaked on.  The blocks swelled and pushed a big chunk of the floor up.

One of the guys there said the building was built before the 2nd world war
and that was the first problem they had had with it.  I don't know if they
do any kind of preventive maintaince or not, such as reseal.
Charles
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "George Willer" <gwill at toast.net>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 12:14 AM
Subject: Re: [AT] OT Barn floor question (wood block)


> Back in the late 50's or early 60's I was doing some night sub-contract
work
> in a huge new factory building.  I was there the night when they installed
> the wood block floor over the concrete base.  It was amazing to see how
> quickly they paved several acres.
>
> It was done mostly with road building equipment.  A sealer/adhesive coat
of
> hot asphalt was spread from a distribution truck first.  When that had
> cooled, the pre-coated blocks were tailgated from dump trucks.  A crew of
> laborers quickly stood all the on end roughly in position.  Another
laborer
> walked along the edge every few rows with a 4x4 hanging from a sling on
his
> shoulder and smacked it with a sledge to align the blocks.  When the
entire
> area was covered, the distribution truck covered it with another layer of
> hot asphalt and the laborers squeegeed it into the cracks to tie it all
> together.
>
> I can't say for sure, but I think these blocks were no more than 3" long.
> and about 3 1/2" square.
>
> George Willer
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Mark Greer" <greerfam at raex.com>
> To: "Antique tractor email discussion group"
<at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2004 11:28 PM
> Subject: Re: [AT] OT Barn floor question
>
>
> >I was in an old machine shop once that was "paved" with end cut wood
> >blocks.
> > They were 4x4 blocks about 12" long stood on end. The whole shop was
done
> > like that and it looked like a tile floor. The building was turn of the
> > century or a bit older and it was still in pretty good shape. I don't
know
> > what type of wood it was but it had very small growth rings so it was
> > probably old growth timber.
> > Mark
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "Larry D. Goss" <rlgoss at evansville.net>
> > To: "'Antique tractor email discussion group'"
> > <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
> > Sent: Monday, October 18, 2004 11:18 PM
> > Subject: RE: [AT] OT Barn floor question
> >
> >
> >> Weren't the "uppity-up" horse barns paved with wood blocks?  I can't
> >> remember the correct name for it, but it's wooden blocks placed on end
> >> so the end grain of the wood is the floor surface.  It's similar to
> >> parquet, but that's not what it's called -- built like a butcher block.
> >> If I remember correctly the carriage house of the Reitz home here in
> >> Evansville still has some of the original stall floor left that is like
> >> that, and so is the stables/restaurant at the Biltmore in Ashville.
> >> Wood 4X4's about a foot long -- set on end in sand.
> >>
> >> Larry
> >
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>
>
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