my wife and i purchased bellawood 3.25" bloodwood flooring and are looking to install it in february. my friend also purchased it (we combined orders), and we installed about 80% of his project over the weekend. the issue i have here is that 75%-85% of the boards split by the tongues when we used the pneumatic nailer. the installed floor looks fantastic, but i have an issue with the splitting. i am told that we should predrill holes before using the nailer. is this possible? how do i aim the nailer? has anyone installed bloodwood before. there is a real lack of info regrading this on the web. thanks

You're floors are probably already installed by now - but I'm currently in the process of having the same floors installed in my home. What a nightmare! While they are beautiful floors, because it is such a hard wood, they tend to split when nailed down. Also, nothing matches (like wood filler for nail holes, etc.) One of the workers installing told me about a little trick of using the powder from the boards that were cut and combining that with a poly glue to cover the nail holes (this is the only way to match this wood's color). I hope you are enjoying your floors -- hope I will enjoy mine once the nightmare of installation is over!

The only real way to install properly is to pre-drill the toung or you will split the bloodwood. I have had some luck with putting soap on the nails to help them slide through the wood. No matter what you do it is more work than conventional hardwood installation.