A Name You Can Trust

Marks Lumber is a family-owned business that has been providing high-quality wood products in Clancy, Montana, for over 75 years. Marks Lumber is your choice for quality specialty forest products, including timbers, rough-sawn boards, circle-sawn flooring, and natural wood siding.

From project design to developing accurate estimates, providing material, and guiding you on the maintenance of your wood products, the Marks Lumber team is with you every step of the way. The entire team at Marks Lumber is committed to providing top-quality lumber products in an ecologically sound fashion. Our friendly, customer-focused team has the experience, expertise, and desire to make your build successful.

Quality Lumber, Quality Life

Being part of a community for generations teaches the value of doing things right for the long haul. Marks Lumber only sources logs from foresters who harvest timber in a sustainable and ecologically friendly fashion.

With our innovation and commitment to responsible harvest, the quality of life for the Montana community as a whole improves from the economic benefit of a thriving timber products business and from the revitalized forest health left behind by our foresters.

Benefits of Marks Lumber Circle-Sawn Flooring

Quality Products

Circle-sawn wood products from Marks Lumber are produced using consistent manufacturing techniques. We use a unique circle-saw head rig to provide several products.

At Marks Lumber, we only use high-quality logs, which makes our flooring unique and highly durable. Our authentic circle-sawn wood products are carefully kiln-dried and graded. We aim to produce architecturally sound dry lumber for the discerning home builder.

Installing circle-sawn flooring can be strenuous and time-consuming if you have to trim the pieces at the construction site. With our flooring, all the boards are properly end-matched using the optimizing trim saw. This quality end-matching process makes it possible to use materials with defects that would otherwise be deemed unviable if we weren’t able to inexpensively remove these faults, and carefully end match the shorter pieces to create a great floor.

Durability

Circle-sawn flooring at Marks Lumber focuses on sustainability. A quality flooring product should be able to serve you for years to come, providing value for your money and peace of mind.

Our circle-sawn flooring does just that.

Marks Lumber manufacturers use high-quality circle-sawn flooring from Montana-grown Douglas fir. While Douglas fir is still a relatively soft wood, it has enough density to provide a very durable living surface when installed with a quality floor finish.

The actual thickness of circle-sawn flooring boards is 13/16 inch, and this makes it perfect for high-traffic areas. Our circle-sawn flooring has a texture that provides a great deal of shadow and color variation, which reduces the visibility of minor scratches. On top of that innate style, Douglas fir has a natural ability to hold stains. This makes the staining process so much more efficient.

Playing into that long-term durability, you also have the option to refinish your floor down the line, giving your home a refresh without the cost of new flooring. Marks Lumber circle-sawn flooring allows you to refinish your floor easily if you followed our installation guidelines.

To refinish your Marks Lumber floor:

· Empty the room of furniture.

· Deep clean the floor.

· Lightly abrade the finish with sandpaper, 120 grit, or similar.

· Give the floor a final cleaning.

· Reapply finish, but know this may require a few coats.

Stylish, Flexible Colors

Douglas fir presents a warm natural appearance with beautiful yellows and reds. The color can be enhanced. It provides a natural warm feel, and the wood wears beautifully.

Cleaning circle-sawn Douglas fir flooring is easy once you apply the finish, an attractive benefit if you are a homeowner with young children and pets. The shadow and texture also make it hard for stains to show. We create our flooring texture with our unique circular saw head rig, rather than applying a texture to smooth flooring.

Estimating and Purchasing Material

Not all circle-sawn flooring is created equal. Marks Lumber’s circle-sawn flooring comes from a true large circular saw, not a planed tongue-and-groove product that is re-textured to look similar to circle-sawn. Marks Lumber’s end-matched product will go in faster, and with less waste than butt-end products.

Marks Lumber planer mill staff will spot measure the moisture content of your flooring order as they end-match per your order. They will staple the range of moisture content they found on the top of one of the flooring units with our instruction sheet.

It’s critical to estimate appropriately in order to minimize the project cost. Marks Lumber sales staff are happy to help you calculate the flooring required for your project. It is essential to measure the space you are covering accurately, but that doesn’t have to be a hassle for you. If you are currently building and have the plans, send them to us. We’ll do the rest.

If you measure from an existing structure, figure the square footage as close as possible when you measure. We recommend that you buy around 5% over your estimated need because you don’t want to run short of wood after you acclimate.

Installation and Finish

1. Lay Flooring

Start on a straight wall, and snap a line where the leading side (tongue side) of the board will be. Nail the first board approximately ½” from the edge of the board on the wall side using an 8-penny finish nail about every 10”. It is best to start with a 1 x 4 because these are easiest to use on a straight line.

Using a flooring nailer, nail the boards every 8” – 10” through the tongue, starting about 1” from the end of the board. Hit the nailer once to set the boards as tight as possible, check all joints, and hit again to set the nail. Use any short pieces as the first or last board in a row, and put the longer pieces in the center.

Use a pneumatic air nailer on the last couple of rows, being sure to wedge the boards tight. Be certain you nail the final board like the first row of boards.

A Valuable Tip:

Sometimes it’s best to start in the middle of a room if you have a nice long run. This method works exceptionally well if it is a highly visible area, not along the wall of a room or an area that runs into another room or down a hallway.

Start by snapping a line. Use two in blocking, and get a super straight line to work against, laying flooring starting from those blocks. Then make a tongue using a table saw, remove the blocking, and put the wood in the other direction. Doing this ensures that the highly visible area will look amazing!

2. Sanding

The sanding process is an essential step for installing circle-sawn flooring, but it is not as rigorous or as complicated as a traditional hardwood floor. The process requires your room to be empty, and all floor coverings removed.

What you need to do next is to thoroughly inspect the floor to check if there are any protruding nails. If you find any nails, you should punch them into the wood until they are about 2 mm below the surface. Doing this will help you avoid damaging the machine and sandpaper.

To finish sanding successfully, you’ll need to use two machines:

· A vibrating pad sander used to sand the main part of the floor

· An edging sander used around the edges of the room

Refer to the refinishing section if you are updating your finish.

Once you have gotten the “hair”—small attached bits of wood—off your floor, the next step will be to clean the floor thoroughly. You should sweep and vacuum the floor to remove debris and dust, taking time to wipe away dust from window sills, walls, and other fixtures.

During the cleaning process, if you find any rough areas or knots in the wood flooring, you can sand them by hand until smooth. The last step in the cleaning process will be to wipe the floor with a cloth or sponge dampened with mineral spirits. You can also use a good tack cloth.

3. Staining

It’s important to understand that sanding leaves the floor susceptible to damage by moisture. You should stain immediately after completing the sanding process to ensure that no additional moisture seeps into your wood floor.

The staining process is most successful when the temperature is between 60 – 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Marks Lumber recommends using a good oil-penetrating stain that will provide exceptional beauty on the bare Douglas fir wood. However, many floor stains work great. Collaborate with a knowledgeable professional to find the right one for you.

Marks Lumber provides some samples for stain experimentation. Be sure to use stains according to the manufacturer’s instructions. All quality stains will work with Marks Lumber flooring.

For example, we have many satisfied customers who have used Old Masters Products, both the Quick Dry and Oil Penetrating stains. An oil penetrating stain is easy to work with because it dries slower. But it takes a minimum of 24 hours to cure before you can coat it with a high-quality, water-based sealer and finish.

4. Distressed Sanding

The Marks Lumber Douglas fir circle-sawn flooring is designed to create a rustic look even when the wood is still new. So, how do you make your flooring appear aged and match the existing floor and furniture?

The answer is to distress your new floor. The term “distressed” refers to a surface treatment that gives the floor an aged, timeworn, and natural look.

To distress the circle-sawn floor, you need to scuff sand to maintain a natural look. Always remember to sand with the grain pattern—not against it or diagonally to it.

The amount of distressing depends on individual preferences. For instance, a homeowner may choose to have higher-traffic areas look more distressed to give the more natural appearance of many years of foot traffic.

The goal of distressing the floor through sanding is to reveal some of the wood underneath the stain coat, creating an aged appearance. When you’ve finished the process, you must vacuum again and get the floor completely clean before sealing.

5. The Sealing Process

The goal of wood sealer products is to plug the pores in flooring material to allow the finish coats to stand up on the wood flooring. Many manufacturers, including Bona, indicate that you do not need to seal the floor if you use a stain. However, for circle-sawn Douglas fir, we strongly recommend the seal coat.

The porous nature of the fir, coupled with the increased surface area of the circle-sawn flooring, make it helpful to seal before applying a finish. The finish will stand up much better, adding durability, and you will use less of an expensive product.

6. Finish

This flooring is designed to add a distinct wood character and beauty to any space. The floor finish is the layer of the flooring system that you live on, and it is not the place to try and save money.

We recommend a product called Bona’s Mega Finish. There are many quality products in the market, but we prefer Bona because it’s both easy to work with and extremely durable. When you want to refresh your floor in the future as it begins to show wear, Bona is a natural product to use, delivering amazing results.

7. Cleaning and Maintenance

With proper cleaning and maintenance, this flooring will last for decades without losing its beauty. Be sure to vacuum and clean your floors regularly to prevent dirt buildup from scratching your floors.

You should wipe spills immediately to avoid stains. Use a clean towel to dry the surface thoroughly to prevent damage to the floor by wet spills.

Bona hardwood floor cleaners have unique formulations that provide a complete clean by effectively removing dirt, dust, and grime. To clean the wood floors, use safe, neutral cleaners like the Bona floor cleaner, and a quality mop.

During winter, when your heating system runs more often, dry air can suck moisture from the floor, causing severe damage. Exposure to heat can cause excessive dryness, which could create cracks on the floor. While precise climate control and humidifiers are ideal, simple tricks—like leaving a large pot of water on the stove gently boiling during dinner—can help.

When to Refinish

Don’t put refinishing off too long. If you see noticeable wear, then you know it’s time to refinish your floor. It’s generally inexpensive and straightforward to refinish your floor, but if the wear and tear affect the finish and the stain, or the wood is damaged, the repair is much more challenging and costly. Never wait until you see this kind of wear. Refinish your wood, and you’ll be comfortably living on your floor again in no time.

Learn More About Our Bona Finish Products Products