Hardwood flooring designing

Hello. I have an idea for a type of engineered hardwood flooring. Instead of the planks having straight edges, they would have curved edges and form a repeating pattern. This is something I want to build myself or with the help of a manufacturing company, and eventually build a business around it.

I have been visiting flooring retailers in my area hoping they could put me in touch with someone who has knowledge of engineered flooring manufacturing process. So far no one has been able to help, so I'm turning to the internet for help :-)

I imagine engineered hardwood is laminated in large sheets. So my idea was to use a water jet to cut the design then add a tongue and groove with a router.

Here are some question i have...

-The core in engineered hardwood - I have seen some brands with just a single layer of some type of fiberboard, and other brands with multiple layers of cross-grained veneer? What is the advantage of one over the other?

-What type of glue do they use?

-What's the maximum thickness of cut that can be achieved using the rotary cut veneer method, I would like to use a 1/4" wear layer.

-Should I be worried about swelling from the water in the waterjet cutting process?

-Would it be possible to impregnate the wood (a resin maybe, silicon) to minimize dimensional instability due to humidity fluctuations?

Any questions or comments you may have are welcome.

I've included a picture of a few sketches to give you an idea of what I have in mind.

 

Let me start at the end & then I'll go back to the beginning. By the end I mean, the actual installation which would be a nightmare. Designs like those would make me curse design engineers more than I already do.

Now, back to the beginning. You went to a retailer to learn about manufacturing. You could contact some manufacturers directly to ask about the process. However, even if you do that, you would need to get a patent, on your design to either start your own manufacturing, sell it or license it. I'm an avid watcher of Shark Tank. I've seen many entrepreneurs present various scenarios similar to yours. You might want to look at it.

 

Welcome to the forums.

You're asking a lot of proprietary questions. Questions with carefully guarded answers from the manufacturing companies.

You have to experiment on your own to see what works. It could take years and a lot of money to come up with workable ideas.

 

Thanks for the feedback :-)