Getting Decklet in a Line

With my ancient laptop swallowing up a few un-backed-up photos, my record is slightly incomplete here, but I'll add a couple more posts to reflect recent work.

For the sake of maintaining an easy path to the work area we had delayed demolishing  the odd-shaped bit of decking that Tom rebuilt about 5 years ago, between the shower and the front of the deck, but one afternoon when I was stymied by lack of the right deck screws I attacked this mini-project. Removing the rusted-in screws demanded some vigorous work with a brace and bit (to maintain enough downward pressure--I now hate regular Philips-heads as they are much more prone to stripping than square-drives or Torx-drives!).

I raised the frame the several inches it needed to match the new deck level, and was able to re-use the Simpson fasteners as well as one of the old joists. Building the structure this way left Muggs' drain system unchanged, and allowed for the eventual re-use of the boards, though the angle turned out to be slightly different.

After running the boards through the planer a couple of times and then rounding over the edges, I could dry-fit the new system, though I wouldn't be able to start pinning them down until I had secured the deckboards between the reference board and the edge of the house (which meant cutting for pipes, making sure the door opened smoothly, and adjusting the widths to reflect the non-straightness of the house itself).  The rains also posed a slight challenge, as the Vycor membrane on the new joists only sticks to dry wood.

Here's a detail of the piece nearest the front door, with the half-moons cut out to fit the vent stack on the right and the electrical feed on the left.  Any windblown rain that runs down the siding boards will be diverted away from the house structure by the flashing we added earlier.

I had to piece and rearrange a couple of boards and add a skinny one to make the end work out, a process made a little more frustrating because I was listening to Giants games during their losing streak.

As I had done on the Big House deck near the driveway, I decided to avoid large exposure of end grain (made worse by the angle cuts in this traezoidal deck-let) and add a "breadboard" edging piece, milled without a roundover so the inner edges meet flush.  I like the resulting look, and it should wear better than raw edges might.

One of the more satisfying operations in any deck job occurs when you finally trim off the ragged edges and achieve a more uniform look.  Giving a haircut this way demands a certain mind-set, and it's often a good idea to set things up and then wait until the next morning before making the do-or-die cut.  This was another example of listening to Muggs and saving myself a mistake.