Less Hassle Deck Building

by nlinventor

1.5K395

Intro: Less Hassle Deck Building

This instructable demonstrates how to readily handle the early stages of deck construction. The meat of the procedure is to construct a simple (but square) "alignment frame" that is hinged to two temporary vertical boards that are mounted on the ledger board. The alignment frame keeps the concrete piers and wooden posts "perfectly" aligned during the first steps in the deck building process. The frame also supports and aligns the posts during the installation of the rim joists.

I added a step by step (typed) procedure at the end of the video.

The included video (below) covers the "front" deck of the house. Here's a link to a companion video that describes the building of the back deck - "Back" deck video

All the pictures shown in the video were BI (Before [my] Instructables) so definitely not as comprehensive as I would like. However, the written step by step procedure (at the end of the video) should help make up for the "missing" photos.

STEP 1: Video Describes the Deck Pier/post Alignment Technique


5 Comments

Northerner26 8 years ago

more stairs then a deck but either way it looks fantastic!!

TomV4 9 years ago

Great squaring/alignment technique! Thank you!

Now how do you split a pencil like the one at 1:14 into the video? Another clever idea.

nlinventor 9 years ago

Sorry for late in reply, didn't see notice. I probably planed it with a hand plane or sanded it down with my bench sander. I don't recall which method I used. If I were to do another one right now I think I would rest it against a bench stop and carefully plane it down with the hand plane.

TomV4 9 years ago

Thanks, friend! I just thought that little detail was the icing on the cake of ingenuity.