Arts and Crafts: deck part 2

Since the last time, I finished laying out the deck boards. Making sure the grain faced down.

There are heated discussions about spacing or no spacing of decks. I chose spacing. I use the edge of my steel square for a spacing gauge. After the wood finishes drying, the gap should expand to 1/4 ” for good drainge. Deck boards were fastened with galvanized and ribbed nails from my nail gun. I know there are also heated internet arguments about nails or screws but I’m sure these will work fine.

I offset each row of boards by 2 cells and cut them to begin and end on joists. Buying boards that legnth would have saved me some work but the 10ft boards were what the store had. After they are nailed down, I use my circular saw to trim all the edges to uniform length.

Then the 2×4 rails, top and bottom, screwed to the deck posts. I tried to use a jig to space the balusters but I ran into something Og said about “Tolerance stack error” where the end of the run was very out of plumb. So I took them all down and measured marks every 5 1/4 inches on the top rail, nailed to that, and used the steel square to check plumb before nailing the bottoms. I used 5 or 6 2″ galvanized finishing nails at each top and bottom.

Then I went back to Lowes to get some top quality deck boards to use as rail tops. These don’t cost much more but have fewer flaws in them so they look and feel nicer. Mitered the corners and cut the lengths so each piece was supported by at least 4 posts. Nailed with 2- 1/2″ galvanized nails.

VIOLA! Finished

The last board near the house is laid loose (not nailed). It will be finished after I install the new doors and re-do all the cedar on the back of the house.

I expended 2 circular saws on this project. The first I noticed the blade was worn. After replacing the blade, it caught fire in the switch and stopped working. It was a 30 year old saw from Sears (back when they existed) so i cant complain. So I got out my backup saw. Improper chord management resulted in slicing through the power chord. I can probably fix that, but I happen to have a third circular saw to finish the job.

Once again, air powered nail guns REALLY save a lot of work.

This deck isn’t all that useful in the winter, which I am told is coming. But it is useful as a scaffold to stand on when I install three sliding glass doors on that wall and remove the windows.