Laminate flooring

[Glanceblamm]

My Wife along with our son-in-law are putting the snap together wood laminate flooring down in our Kitchen. This is the long, narrow stuff and does not require any gluing. I am mainly supervising because of being laid-up recently. We did this in our dining room within the last couple years and it is still looking good. This came at a price though as a great amount of pure muscle strenght along with a lot of finess was nessary to get both the end and the side joints to lock up properly. I do see that tools are avalible but yet it seems that it is easy to damage those edges. Has anyone worked with this stuff that can offer a good technique or a tool for assembling this stuff?
Thanks

[Hairtrigger]

If you are removing old flooring first you may need this.
http://www.ineidatools.com/index.html

[DalesCarpentry]

It sounds like the stuff I put in a few times. The trick I learned was to take a whole snap the ends together the whole length of the room. It may take 2 or 3 people for the next step depending in the length of the room. I then would tilt the flooring up at about a 45 degree angle and snap the whole row in at one time. Hope this helps. Dale

[Glanceblamm]

Hairtrigger,
Looks like a wicked too for sure!...Fortunately, we were able to get vinyl tiles up and expose subflooring that was in good shape.

Dale,
We fought this installation some last night. We tryed working short lenght's on the width so as to get around counters on either side of the room easier...No Good, just wont go when trying to add lenght to the width of more than one plank. I then saw your post and we are working on the entire lenght. Appears to be snapping in and we are now on row four. We are staying 1/4" away from all walls and counter surfaces as said by the directions. When complete, we will re-install the kick panels at the counter bottom's and then use the 1/2" quarter-round to trim it up.
THANKS

[Glanceblamm]

Finished

It really wasn't a big area, around 172 Square feet. Dales method worked the best by going for the entire lenght and snapping the  boards in @ a 45degree angle. We enhanced the installation by moving the new board to and fro in the groove of the existing board to help to clean out or lap both surfaces before finally snapping it into place.
I would still rate the installation of this product as being 50% muscle & 50% finesse. The battle was not near as bad as the dining room was though a couple years ago.

Thanks Dale!
I have been sick and will miss some work in the future if able to work at all. We replaced some windows in the late fall and this flooring will put us in good shape to get an appraisal which will allow refinance at a much better rate so as to keep our budget in order. Further considerations will be to drop our Cable tv service along with this Internet
Hope it doesn't come down to that but ya have to do what ya have to do. The Wife recently went from a Contractual to a full time State employee with good pay and excellent benefits so this will help out a bunch. I will be undergoing Chemo, trying to work, and shooting those S/A revolvers!

[DalesCarpentry]

I am happy my post helped you out. I am sorry to hear about your health and hope you can recover. Dale

[torpedoman]

the tool works fine just be sure to use a RUBBER mallet with it.