Making Plank Flooring & Siding by Gizzmo

I've been working on a timber-frame building for my layout. When it came time for some flooring I decided to make my own. It came out so well I though of posting the method here. I started with couple of blades from a sheet-rock knife.

First I dulled the blades and ground one to look like this:

After grinding a slight curve on both ends of the other blade, I created this by gluing them together with a piece of wood between them. I used CA glue with a 'kicker' to cure it. Make sure you rough up the areas being glued both on the metal blade as well as the wood to help with the bonding. The glue took about 15 minutes to set up and provide a firm hold.

Nothing too critical here. The idea is to use the wood to separate the blades and to limit the depth of the scribe / cut. The blade with the curved ends is the guide for the tool. It travels in the last groove made. Using this gizzmo is fairly easy and straightforward: just slide it along one edge of a piece of balsa wood sheeting to make the first groove. Then put the guide in that groove and slide it along to make another. When applying the pressure, make sure that its just enough to notch the wood, but not enough to crush it. Here's a look:

Make sure the edge of your balsa wood plank is true. Since this will be used to scribe the first line of the simulated planking, you want to make sure this line is as true as possible. Make sure you make a couple of passes making the groove nice and pronounced so that it becomes a good footing for the guide on the blade when scribing the next line.

When I was done with the whole piece I stained it with some Minwax Early "American" stain.

Looks just like flooring ! I'll be using this on my buildings for flooring and I think with the right color it will make a fine plank siding too.