Brass & Metal Inlay Hardwood Flooring in Atlanta

Classy Flooring ATL is a brass and metal inlay flooring specialist serving Atlanta and the metro area. We rout solid metal into hardwood floors — feature strips, borders, thresholds, and inlay set into custom pattern work.

Brass inlay starts at $24 per linear foot.

Most of what is sold as brass inlay is not solid brass, and most of what fails does so for reasons decided before anyone picks up a tool. This page covers what to specify, what it costs, and why.

What brass inlay costs

Brass inlay starts at $24 per linear foot. That figure covers the brass itself, routing the channel, fitting and setting the metal, and hand-finishing the wood along both edges of it.

It is a starting figure rather than a fixed one because brass inlay is priced by the time it takes, and the time is set by the design.

What makes the work slower, and therefore more expensive:

Mitres, corners, and changes of direction. A long straight run in an open room is the fastest brass there is. Every corner is a separate cut and a separate fit.
Doorway thresholds. The slowest work per foot on any job. Each threshold is a short, independent run with a cut at both ends.
Curves. The metal has to be formed to the radius before it goes anywhere near the floor.
Prefinished floors. There is no sanding pass afterwards. The metal has to land flush the first time, and there is no correcting it later.
Short runs. The setup is the same whether the run is three feet or thirty.
Brass specified shallower than the thickness of the floor. This is the single largest cost driver on most inlay jobs, and it is the one you can do something about. It is covered below.

Specify the brass at the full thickness of the floor

This is the most useful decision you can make about a brass inlay, and it is made before anyone picks up a tool.

When the brass is as deep as the floor is thick, the channel is routed straight through to the subfloor. The subfloor then sets the height of the metal. The brass sits flush with the wood face as a matter of geometry rather than judgement.

When the brass is shallower than the floor, the channel has to stop at a controlled depth — and that depth has to be held accurately along every foot of the run. It is slower and more demanding work. On a prefinished floor there is no sanding pass afterwards to correct anything that drifts.

Both approaches produce a flush floor in skilled hands. Full-thickness brass takes a variable out of the job, and it costs less to install. That is our preference from having done the work, not a rule.

NWFA’s Ornamental Floors states that quarter-inch nonferrous metal is preferable for inlay work.

Specify solid metal

A floor is a wear surface. That changes what the material has to survive.

Plated and anodised strips are aluminium with a brass-coloured coating on the outside. The coating is thin. When it is scratched — and in a floor it will be — the aluminium underneath shows through, and there is no way to bring it back. Thin sheet strips have the same problem for a different reason: at a sixteenth of an inch there is very little metal to give.

Solid brass wears to more brass. It can be scratched, walked on, and refinished, and it is the same material all the way down.

We specify solid C360 brass bar and request mill test reports certifying the alloy composition.

Which metal

Brass, copper, or aluminium. Any of the three will work, because all three are nonferrous — they contain no iron. That is the property that matters, and it is the reason the choice between them is a design decision rather than a technical one.

Iron-bearing metals are a different matter. Steel and stainless steel should not be set into a wood floor, because sanding them throws sparks into a room full of wood dust. Even where a floor is prefinished and no sanding is planned, a floor with a real wear layer will be refinished at some point in its life, and whoever does that work will have no way of knowing the metal is there. NWFA prohibits ferrous metals in wood floors on those grounds.

Within the nonferrous group, the differences are in how the metal ages and how it reads in the room. Brass is what we specify and what most clients ask for; it warms as it patinas. Copper darkens further and faster. Aluminium stays cool and modern in tone, and it is the least expensive of the three.

Whichever metal you choose, specify it solid.

How the brass is held in the floor

The brass is bedded in the same flooring adhesive that holds the floor itself down, in a routed channel, so that the metal and the wood around it sit on one continuous bond layer.

The reason is movement. Wood and metal do not respond to the same thing. Wood is hygroscopic: it takes up and gives off moisture with the seasons, and changes dimension across the grain as it does. Metal does not respond to humidity at all — it moves with temperature. NWFA states this directly in Ornamental Floors. It means that every inch of the boundary between the brass and the wood carries differential movement, seasonally, for the life of the floor.

A wood flooring adhesive is engineered for exactly that stress. It is the adhesive that holds an entire floor down while the floor expands and contracts. Bedding the brass in the same adhesive as the field means there is no interface between two materials of different stiffness — no boundary where the movement concentrates.

NWFA’s Ornamental Floors names moisture-cure urethane adhesive among the adhesives commonly used for brass, copper, and aluminium inlay. The product we use is a moisture-cured polyurethane, formulated and approved by its manufacturer for mixed-media installations combining wood flooring with other materials.

One practical consequence: the adhesive has an adjustability window of two to three hours at normal conditions. On a prefinished floor, where the brass has to be seated at final height the first time, that window is what makes it achievable.

Brass inlay in prefinished floors

A prefinished floor is finished at the factory. Nothing is sanded after it is installed. That is the whole appeal of the product, and it is also the reason some contractors will tell you brass inlay cannot be done in one.

It can. We have done it.

The reason it is harder is that every conventional inlay method assumes a sanding pass. NWFA’s guidance for brass, copper, and aluminium describes setting the metal fractionally below the wood surface and sanding the floor down to meet it, and fixing the metal with nails whose heads are then sanded flush. Every one of those steps depends on a sander coming afterwards.

On a prefinished floor there is no sander coming. The brass has to land flush when it goes in.

That is what full-thickness metal solves. The channel routes to the subfloor, the subfloor sets the height, and the brass arrives flush without a correction pass. It is also why the depth question matters more on a prefinished floor than on any other — there is no second chance at it.

The subfloor decides what is possible

Brass is less forgiving than wood, and the reason is rigidity.

A wood plank has enough give to absorb a shallow dip in the subfloor and hide it. A solid brass bar has none. It bridges a low spot and stands proud of the wood, or it drops into one and sits below it. Whatever the subfloor is doing, the brass will report it.

NWFA is direct: any irregularity in the subfloor is mirrored in the finished floor. For glue-down work the subfloor should be flat to within 3/16 of an inch over ten feet, or 1/8 of an inch over six feet. Herringbone often demands tighter than that.

This is not a reason to avoid brass. It is a reason to establish the condition of the subfloor before the design is agreed, and to correct it if it needs correcting. Our subfloor preparation process sets out how flatness is measured and how it is brought into tolerance.

Featured project — European White Oak Herringbone with Solid Brass Inlay, Woodstock GA

A two-house family estate. 214 linear feet of solid brass set into prefinished engineered European white oak herringbone — 76 linear feet in one house, 138 in the other, carried through the fields and across 15 doorway thresholds.

Flooring: Prefinished engineered European white oak, 9.5″ wide × 5/8″, 4 mm sawn wear layer, wire-brushed, single manufacturing batch

Brass: Solid C360-H02, 1/4″ × 1/2″, mill finish, unlacquered and left to patina

Method: Routed channel, bedded flush in the flooring adhesive

Pattern: Herringbone shop-fabricated from the plank stock, framed with a custom mechanically-locked border

The floor was prefinished and wire-brushed — textured, and never sanded after installation. Both of the conditions under which brass inlay is most often said to be impossible.

View the full project →

Related hardwood flooring services

A brass inlay is decided by the work around it. The pattern it sits in, the condition of the subfloor beneath it, and whether the floor is prefinished or site-finished all determine what is possible, how it has to be installed, and what it costs. These are the decisions made before any metal is ordered.

Custom hardwood pattern installation

Herringbone, chevron, and custom borders. Brass inlay is rarely specified on its own — it is almost always set into pattern work, framing a herringbone field, running through a border, or marking the line where one material meets another. The layout of the pattern determines where the metal can go and how many corners it has to turn.

Subfloor preparation

How flatness is measured, and how it is brought into tolerance. This is the condition that decides whether a brass inlay is possible at all. A wood plank can absorb a shallow dip in the subfloor. A solid brass bar cannot — it will report whatever is underneath it. The subfloor is established before the design is agreed, not after.

Prefinished vs. site-finished engineered hardwood

The choice that determines whether the floor receives a sanding pass after installation. It changes how the brass has to be set, how the depth of the channel is controlled, and how much of the work has to be right the first time. If you are considering an inlay, decide this before you decide anything else about the metal.

Engineered and prefinished flooring installation

The products we install, the subfloor and moisture requirements they carry, and the methods used over plywood and over concrete slab. Most brass inlay in Atlanta homes goes into engineered flooring, because most Atlanta homes are built on slab.

Our work

Documented projects across refinishing, custom pattern installation, and new installation, with the materials, finish systems, and methods recorded for each.

Hardwood flooring FAQ

Answers on installation, refinishing, subfloors, finishes, and material selection.

Brass and metal inlay questions

How much does brass inlay flooring cost?

Brass inlay starts at $24 per linear foot. That figure covers the brass itself, routing the channel, fitting and setting the metal, and hand-finishing the wood along both edges of it.

It is a starting figure because brass inlay is priced by the time it takes, and the time is set by the design. A long straight run in an open room is the fastest brass there is. Every mitre, corner and change of direction is a separate cut and a separate fit. Doorway thresholds are the slowest work per foot on any job, because each one is a short independent run with a cut at both ends. Curves have to be formed to the radius before the metal goes anywhere near the floor.

Two further things move the number. On a prefinished floor there is no sanding pass afterwards, so the metal has to land flush the first time — slower, more exacting work. And brass specified shallower than the thickness of the floor requires the channel to be held at a controlled depth along its entire length, which is the single largest cost driver on most inlay jobs.

Can brass inlay be added to a floor that is already installed?

Yes. The channel is cut into the finished floor with a router running on a track, guided in the same way a track saw is. It is a documented method and it is how most retrofit inlay is done.

It is slower than inlaying during installation, for two reasons. Before any routing begins, every fastener along the line of the design has to be located and dealt with, because a router bit meeting a nail ends badly for both. And on an existing floor the channel must be cut to a controlled depth rather than routed through to the subfloor, which means holding that depth accurately along the whole run.

Where the existing floor is prefinished, there is the additional constraint that no sanding pass follows. The metal has to sit flush when it goes in.

None of this makes retrofit inlay a compromise. It does make it more expensive per linear foot than the same design specified before the floor goes down, and it is worth knowing that when you are pricing the work.

Solid brass, or brass-plated and brass-look — does it matter?

Specify solid. A floor is a wear surface, and that changes what the material has to survive.

Solid brass wears to more brass. It can be scratched, walked on, and refinished, and it is still the same material all the way down. That is the whole argument, and it is why we specify solid C360 brass bar and request mill test reports certifying the alloy.

How thick should the brass be?

Specify it at the full thickness of the floor. This is the single most useful decision you can make about a brass inlay, and it is made before anyone picks up a tool.

When the brass is as deep as the floor is thick, the channel is routed straight through to the subfloor. The subfloor then sets the height of the metal, and the brass sits flush with the wood face as a matter of geometry rather than judgement.

When the brass is shallower than the floor, the channel has to stop at a controlled depth, and that depth has to be held accurately along every foot of the run. It is slower and more demanding work, and on a prefinished floor there is no sanding pass afterwards to correct anything that drifts.

Both approaches produce a flush floor in skilled hands. Full-thickness brass simply takes a variable out of the job, and it costs less to install. That is our preference from having done the work, not a rule.

NWFA states that quarter-inch nonferrous metal is preferable for inlay work.

What does the subfloor have to be like?

Flat. This is the real constraint on a brass inlay, and it is worth settling before the design is agreed.

NWFA is direct about it: any irregularity in the subfloor is mirrored in the finished floor. For glue-down work the subfloor should be flat to within 3/16 of an inch over ten feet, or 1/8 of an inch over six feet. Herringbone often demands tighter.

Brass is less forgiving than wood. A wood plank has enough give to absorb a shallow dip and hide it. A solid brass bar has none — it bridges a low spot and stands proud of the wood, or it drops into one and sits below it. Whatever the subfloor is doing, the brass will report it.

This is not a reason to avoid brass. It is a reason to establish the condition of the subfloor first, and to correct it if it needs correcting.

Brass, copper, or aluminium — which metal should I choose?

Any of the three will work, because all three are nonferrous — they contain no iron. That is the property that matters, and it is the reason the choice between them is a design decision rather than a technical one.