# Anyone ever make end-grain wood bricks?



## snav (Jan 24, 2010)

Cost and time made me let go of the idea of putting up thin-brick in the kitchen and dining room area.
So I was bummed but fine with the idea of doing a traditional backsplash and then just texture/paint the walls. I figured that if I could backerboard over the walls anytime in the future and I could put up thinbrick to my heart's content.

But today I came across a few pictures of end-grain wood bricks that were applied as flooring in my "How to do Flooring" book and absolutely love the look of it.
Buying pre-fab wood bricks is so expensive I'd rather bleed myself dry :laughing:
So that leads me to the appealing idea of making my own out of wood that I already have.

Anyone made end grain wood bricks?
How did it look/turn out?

The idea seems simple - slice up a beam of untreated wood (or cut-logs with the bark still on, I have plenty of both) - then sand/stain/finish/apply like tile (with certain considerations to the content of your grout)

But - is it really this simple or does my heart deceive me?

If I decide to go ahead and get into this project does anyone have any tips or advice - what to avoid/be certain to do?

Thanks


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## snav (Jan 24, 2010)

Bump

Anyone?


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## wletson (Jan 11, 2010)

Haven't tried it, but your theory sounds good.

Here's about all I could find out there, haven't checked all of the alternate links mentioned...

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/design/msg071053437112.html

Ooooh, looking at Kaswell.com it would look awesome if you did a checkerboard pattern of two contrasting woods!


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## phinds (Mar 25, 2009)

If you want to get even more fancy, you might check out "oyster veneering", a similar but more complex style.


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## JohnK007 (Nov 14, 2009)

When I was much younger I worked for a short time in a old steel foundry in the maintenance dept. This job allowed me to roam about the plant doing various, dirty tasks. I remember going into one of the machine shops and they had wood bricks for flooring. I had never seen anything like that before, or since. They must be pretty durable because they'd drive fork trucks over them plus the heavy machinery they had. I would think that if you made them out of a good durable hardwood that was adequately dry, it would make for a pretty interesting floor. What would you use for grout? Would you grout them? And, would you set them in regular thinset? Funny you brought this subject up, hadn't thought about those days in a long time.


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## mdlbldrmatt135 (Dec 6, 2006)

JohnK007 said:


> When I was much younger I worked for a short time in a old steel foundry in the maintenance dept. This job allowed me to roam about the plant doing various, dirty tasks. I remember going into one of the machine shops and they had wood bricks for flooring. I had never seen anything like that before, or since. They must be pretty durable because they'd drive fork trucks over them plus the heavy machinery they had. I would think that if you made them out of a good durable hardwood that was adequately dry, it would make for a pretty interesting floor. What would you use for grout? Would you grout them? And, would you set them in regular thinset? Funny you brought this subject up, hadn't thought about those days in a long time.


Yep, we have them in the older parts of the shop where I work too. The newer parts everything is concrete and they just lay plywood, 2x or 4x's down to protect the large metal parts. they're I'd guess 6" long or more though.


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## snav (Jan 24, 2010)

According to my flooring book (which uses pre-fab bricks that are pre-finished) they advise to lay them out like a tile - backerboard as an underlayment, treated as you would for a tile floor. Thinset them in place like you would any other tile - and use a grout that contains an acryllic additive (made to fill large grout areas) . . . seal only the grout (very carefully) and tada.

Sounds mundane - but the look is incredible and I simply must do it and give it a go - especially if I can just use old wood I have leftover from my countless furniture projects in the past - the variety will be neat.

Phinds - thanks for the oyster veneer info! I've never seen or heard of that before and that's stunning - I absolutely need that  I could end-grain wood brick my wall and oyster veneer my diningroom table that I've yet to build.

Interesting to hear that they're found in shops and places such as that - and used outside as pavers (according to the gardenweb link) - very interesting!
Perhaps they use to be more common than they are, now?

Thanks for sharing the memory, John.


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## sofalinux (May 28, 2009)

A lot of GMs floors were wood bricks in the old days. It absorbs shock and vibration from the machines. I don't know if it was meant also as a better surface to walk on than concrete but it was.


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## snav (Jan 24, 2010)

Well, I had to clean out hte carport - and amazingly, it didn't take too long this time. So I had time to kill and worked up one end-grain wood brick-ish.

It's not true end-grain, really. It's a chunk from an old crabapple tree that I cut down. I worked the chunk into a 4x4x6 block to see what I need to consider when doing this for my actual project.

#1 - I'll have to get a miter table saw, my cinder block and pony rig won't work for multiple pieces of this size, but it's been a great portable setup for everything else I've done 
#2 - Crabapple is actually quite tough - I was surprised at how much it resisted being cut and sanded, but it wasn't too tough - So I think it might do well. The other trees around my house are maple, varieties of pines, rosebud, japanese maple, birch and so on. I can really choose any of them and cut them down for this project.
#3 - I'll have to figure out how to do a better job at sanding smaller, handheld pieces - everything else I've done has been large, furniture scale.

So - I did this one, with the bark still on one side - and I'll sand it some more tomorrow and then apply a few stains to see what might look good - and then finish it.


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## egeorge1 (Dec 18, 2009)

This is only somewhat related but I thought you might be interested. This is mesquite tile of varying thicknesses for use on walls. I am thinking of making something similar for a feature wall in my home.
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/tile-stone-countertops/mesquite-tile-from-ann-sacks-016135
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/chicago/tile-stone-countertops/wood-tiles-for-the-bathroom-046534


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## snav (Jan 24, 2010)

Yeah, that's cool.

The more I think about this idea the more I like it - today I was even contemplating how much work and wood it would take to pave my driveway


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