How It's Made - Parquetry

Parquetry was invented In France in the 1600s as an alternative To high-maintenance marble flooring. It's made from small pieces of wood Bonded together in a geometric pattern. The most common motif is squares. But it also comes in other patterns, Such as herringbone, lozenges, and triangles. Parquetry can be made of laminate or plywood. However, the best-quality flooring Is made from genuine wood, such as oak, maple, or yellow birch. The factory first cuts the wood into planks, Measuring 2 to 5 inches wide by about a yard long. A drum saw then cuts each plank Into 6 blocks about 6 inches long While an inspector discards any misshapen ones.

The blocks then move through a planer That shaves a fine layer off both sides. This reduces the blocks to a thickness of just under an inch And smoothes the top and bottom surfaces. Next, the blocks run through a saw With 10 blades that slice them into strips Measuring .3 inches wide by 6.2 inches long. Quality controllers remove any strips With inconsistent thickness, Which are usually the ones cut from the block's extremities. The good strips continue on to another area, Where they undergo a more thorough Quality-control inspection.

A worker checks the tops and bottoms, Then lines them up on a conveyor belt good-side up. She also discards any substandard strips That may have slipped past the first inspection. The conveyor belt then flips the strips over. This positions the strips underside facing upward. Saws then cut two parallel grooves through them. These grooves are set .9 inches in from the edge... ...And are just deep enough to hold a thin aluminum wire That'll connect strips together to form tiles. The next machine dispenses the parallel wires. A wheel pushes the wires deep inside their respective grooves. After every seven strips, The machine cuts the wires and starts new ones.

The 7-length strips form a 6-inch-square tile. An end-matching machine now squares each tile So that the four corners are precisely 90 degrees. Then it carves tongues on two of the tile's edges And grooves into the other two. Four tile feeders then drop tiles into an assembly machine That inserts the tongues into the grooves. The machine then applies hot glue Which bonds the four tiles into one larger tile Measuring 12x12 inches. The tiles are now ready for varnishing. Feeders drop them onto the automated varnishing line. The tile surface gets a sanding.

Rollers then apply an even coat of varnish. From there, the tiles immediately pass under Ultraviolet light. This dries the varnish within a second. Then the process repeats three more times For a total of four coats of varnish. Workers then stack them in 10s, At the same time doing a final inspection And discarding any tile that has a less-than-perfect finish. On the packaging line, Each stack gets a label and clear plastic wrapping. An oven shrinks the plastic tightly around the tiles. Those four coats of varnish made this parquetry superdurable, And because it's real wood, When the many years of wear do begin to show, You can simply refinish the floor to its original splendor.