Project formulation

This page describes some of the history of the project, including drawings of the deck, before pictures of the site, and some general project notes.

Construction notes

Tools:

Tools: Don't skimp! For this job, we purchased a Dewalt 12" miter saw. It proved to be invaluable. We also purchased Forrest saw blades - one for the chop saw and one for the circular saw. These blades are crazy expensive but worth it.

Materials:

Decking material: We used 5/4" x 6" Ipe (since there were a number of reports of cupping with the 4/4" product.) that we purchased from East Teak Trading Group Inc. The price, service and delivery were exceptional.

Railing materials: The cap rail is 8/4' x 6" Ipe. The horizontal rails are clear cedar (which costs much more than the Ipe!). The balusters are from Railwayz. The Railways Uniball was used for the horizontal and slope sections of the deck, the Deckorator's stair connector was used on the stairs.

Deck fascia: Home Depot grade cedar

Paint/finish: Sherman Williams Duration (25 year guarantee - same stuff as on the house's trim). TWP honey brown (for the deck and top rail)

Processes:

If you use Ipe, get a BoWrench. There is no such thing as a straight piece of lumber! As for spacers, the traditional items (nails, nickels, etc) have a serious shortcoming in that they will fall right through unless the gap is narrow to begin with (see previous comment). What we used was a small piece of plastic garden edging - the type with the "tube" on top. This would stay in place with gaps of almost 1". Note that when using the BoWrench, any spacer can be hard to remove. However, gentle application of a pry bar worked most every time (and since we are talking about Ipe, left no marks).

For fastening, we used 8 x 2 1/2" Trim-Star screws. Though some suggested that the small head would not provide sufficient holding power, that was not our experience. For installing, holes were predrilled using a 9/64" drill. To set the screws, a Milwaukee 6740-20 drywall/decking screwdriver was used. Unlike other screwdrivers, this one's clutch is based on depth of screw, not torque, thus each screw gets set to the "exact" same depth. For this deck, we used almost 2700 decking screws and broke fewer than five.

We used the Deckorator's railing connectors to for fastening the horizontal wooden rails to the posts. This was a fairly problematic operation. First, all of the Ipe posts were predrilled prior to being attached to the deck. (This was much easier and faster than trying to drill in place). However, it was then necessary to get all of the holes to line up - you cannot force a stainless screw into Ipe. This involved a lot of thwacking with a mallet to get the rails set to the proper height. We also precut and pre-painted all of the horizontal rail members. The other problem was, that despite careful measurements, the rails did not seem to the the proper length in all cases. The stairs were considerably harder to deal with than the rest of the deck. Note that the note on the Deckorator web-site stating that the stair connectors add 1.5" tot he baluster height is incorrect - they add something under 1".

To strengthen the railing, after precutting all of the top rail pieces to size, we used a biscuit jointer and to cut four biscuit slots at each joint. With the corners joined in this manner (using Tightbond 3 glue), the railing is incredibly rigid.Note that there are no butt joints any place on this deck. This was made possible by using 20' long Ipe decking boards.

Pictures

Here are some pictures of the deck. Click the thumb-nails to see larger images.

By the bumpout - showing how butt joints were avoided	The bulk of the desk looking east	The bulk of the deck looking west
Overview of the deck	Close-up of the railing	The ramp
Side of the ramp, showing stone stairs and edge of patio	Base of the stairs (the scrap is being used to kill the grass)	The stairs

Closing thoughts

This was a major project that required a great deal of effort. But, we think it was worth it. We would welcome hearing from you regarding this project. If you have any questions, we might be able to answer them.