Let's build the side deck step 3. The far side, and biscuits

Now that I've dealt with laying, spacing and bent boards, it's really just a case of getting on with it and reaching the opposite side to where I started.

Reaching out to the far side

When I got close to the other side there were no spacing options for the final board that were going to fill the gap of about 2 1/2 cm. There was nothing for it really but to cut and rip a board down to fit, which wasn't too hard to do as at least it was a decent width to work with.

The far side didn't quite fit so some ripping was required

I fixed the last board and the ripped strip much like the first board, using the counterbore tool, screws and plugs, as it was no longer possible to get into the edge with the decking clamps. Using biscuits as spacers and knocking them down with a hammer, they forced the boards to get the spacing right, and then I drilled, screwed and plugged the holes to give a nice clean finish. You can also see below where the planter box sits in the decking. There is one on each side opposite the windows.

A nice, neat and well spaced finish

In the picture below I have now reached the other side at long last, and there's just a couple of small boards to go to fill in the gap in front of the utility area and garage door entrance.

Top decking done!

Looking down upon the deck you can see the end. No I wasn't that lucky that the last board ended perfectly with the ends of the joists! There was maybe 2 to 3 cm left so I just cut them off even with the edge of the last board. You can see the holes for the two planter boxes on the left, the hole for the sculpture in the centre, and where the other large planters will go on the bottom and the right. Time to get the saw out and cut off those edge boards straight!

I little excess left to trim off

Below is the decking looking nice and neat around the edges, and with the first of the front facing boards in place. I've used the screws and plugs method again to attach the top facing board, and I'll then use the standard laying method with the biscuits and clamps, however they'll be pulling the next board up vertically, instead of across horizontally.

Top decking completed

Last but not least, the single step down to the gravel path gets its turn at being decked out. I'd left enough gap below the second vertical facing board that I could slip the last inside board on the step underneath, making everything nice and neat and not having to rip a final board.

I then cut and mitred the facing boards fitting them again with screws and plugs, and the job is done.

One step to go.

The last job to be done for the construction was a bit of concreting for the soon to arrive water feature. Little did I know a concrete plinth was required for the feature's basin to sit on! I made up a form out of leftover joist timber that did the trick and poured in a couple of bags of pre-mix concrete. All set for delivery!

I came, I saw, I concreted

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So now that I have reached the far side of my very first no-nail deck, here are my thoughts on the products and the process.

As I said in an earlier post, I picked doing a no-nail deck just for the finish as I find not having screw heads or nails is a cleaner look, and in my mind will be easier to maintain as I don't have to worry about nails popping, or knocking down screw heads if I want / need to sand and refinish at some point.

There are two offerings from Deck-Max, the "original" which I used, as well as the "pro" biscuit which requires you to buy their pre-milled decking timber. I chose the "original" biscuit which is substantially cheaper, but as you've now seen means you have to individually mark and cut a slot into each board to line up with each joist, then pack, glue, and screw down each board/biscuit to the joist. This takes a long time. When a say a long time, I mean a REAL long time!

The deck is just over 5.5 metres at the widest, and the record for the most boards I ever laid in a single day was nine, and that was a full day. Overall I averaged probably five boards a day. With only weekends to work on (as I have a day job to pay for all this stuff!) it has taken me some three months to lay 7 metres long, working every weekend for at least one day, and sometimes both days.

That being said, even if it seemed like forever at times, I am really very happy with the result and the look. My wife said it was a labour of love. I say that in the end it was sheer bloody-minded determination on my part to get to the other side.

A big plus is that the guys from Deck-Max are really great and supportive and helped me along the way. They are a fantastic company to deal with, and I cannot fault them in that sense. I guess in the end the real question is, what is your time worth? If you're not in any hurry this may be the perfect product for you!

I have another deck to come per step 12 on the original plan with the back deck (as I am a glutton for punishment) which is twice as big at 14 metres long by 4 wide. I can safely say at this point that there's not a chance that I would use the "original" system as it would take forever! For this I may try the "pro" biscuit system which according to the brochures is faster than screwing alone! Or I may try something else entirely! Stay tuned on that front.

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Next up? Finishing the decking and putting in the water feature.

Let's build the side deck step 3. Reaching the halfway point and getting bent

Continuing on from the last post we'll look at how decking butt joints work with Deck-Max "original" system. Supplied in the kit are a few boxes of Butt Joiner biscuits. These are flat plastic disks around the same size as the normal biscuit but without the spacing flange in the bottom.

To install a butt joint, like when using traditional nails or screws, the join must be over the top of a joist so you need to measure the length of the board to the centre of the joist and cut it accordingly. When it comes to making the slots with the biscuit cutter there will be three cuts required on the end of the timber. Where the join will occur you need to cut a 1/2 cut on the end edge corners as well as a full cut into the end of the board to accommodate the butt joiner biscuit.

Fit the board as normal, and then insert the butt joiner biscuit into the end slot with a row of adhesive applied to the top of the joist under the end of the board. After the next board is fitted, ensure its opposing end slot lines up with the butt joiner biscuit, then give the other free end of the board a gentle tap with the rubber mallet to ensure the two boards are fitting snugly together. After everything is clamped and ready, insert the next biscuit into the cut across the two ends as you would with any other biscuit and screw it down.

The joints created are quite tight and as long as the saw is sharp and set dead on 90 degrees when you cut the ends, it will look smooth and terrific. Not a nail in sight!

Moving across the deck laying the timber I could see there was a problem fast approaching as I got nearer to the corner. As the boards were going to go around the corner I thought it was now prudent to think ahead and see what was going to happen when I reached where the deck gets wider.

As you can see below I laid the boards out and spaced them appropriately (using the Deck-Max biscuits which when sitting side on are 3mm wide) to see what was going to happen when I hit the corner and the boards got longer.

Spacing out the boards

As you can see in the picture below it was going to leave a substantial 5mm gap! Bugger. There's a couple of options available to deal with this such as ripping boards down to make them skinnier, or to make a filler for the gap, but the solution in the end was quite simple.

The dreaded 5mm gap

I happened to be at the Melbourne HIA Home Show and Peter from Deck-Max was there on the Deck-Max stand. I showed him the photos on my phone of the problem and he solved it straight away! When you use the Deck-Max biscuit on its side as a spacer (as recommended) it gives you a 3mm gap, but if you put it flat down using the flange on the bottom as a spacer it's 2mm. That 1mm makes all the difference, and doing this for the remaining boards turned the 5mm leftover space on the corner to ZERO.

It now lined up almost flush. Spot on! There was no visible difference in the spacing that I could see and the result shown below was great.

Space the boards appropriately and there's no more gaps! The lesson? Always think ahead! 

As I said in the last post, never ever buy your timber from the cheapest supplier. If it's that cheap then there is usually a reason why, and so I now had a bunch of bent boards to deal with. Thankfully there was no cupping! Most of the bent boards had a crook (also known as a wain) where the timber had warped along the edge. I made a few different piles for the boards depending on what I assessed the level or warping to be, from slight to severe. The longer of the warped boards are the easiest to deal with, and the shorter ones a real pain!

I looked at a couple of options (yes, I Googled it!) for straightening out all those bent timbers and most (if not all) tools available were shipped out of the USA. I quite liked the Cepco Bow Wrench, but it was going to cost a fortune to ship as there was no local supplier.

There was one however called the Pony Board Boss which was available on Amazon, and the shipping was reasonable as it's quite small as it's only one part of the final assembled tool. Essentially it's a chunk of bent plate steel with two flanges, one with a 1/2 inch hole in it. When combined with a length of 1/2 inch pipe and a pipe clamp, it becomes part a very effective board straightening tool.

The Board Boss!

To use the tool you slot the edge of the Board Boss into the completed decking, lining up the clamp edge with where the bend is in the board to be laid. Then put some spacers in between the board you have laid and the board you are fitting, and all you do is turn the handle on the clamp and the bend magically disappears! The board will now be perfectly straight and you can fix it down as normal.

Winding up the boss!

The decking continues to slowly move across the frame now regardless of bent boards thanks to the Board Boss! If you have access to someone who is good at metal fabrication I think it would be pretty straightforward to make one of these as it just has two bends and a hole.

As you can see below I am now half way across.

The half way mark (roughly)

Let's build the side deck step 3. Those lucky boards are getting laid!

Now the frame is done it's time to put down the decking.

I did a lot of extensive research regarding buying the timber, and also fixing the timber down. Now as you would have read in my recent post about on-line deck building resources, "extensive research" = "Google".

After Googling about deck fixing I came across Kopper's no-nail deck post on The Renovate Forum and from that I was pretty much convinced that no-nail decking was the way to go. The very first deck I ever made was a substantial 40 sqm treated pine job, and I nailed every one of those boards down by hand. By the end of it I had arms like The Hulk. The deck next was a small 15 sqm merbau deck and I used (shock horror now!) a Paslode nail gun that I hired! Sacrilege I know, but forgive me as I knew no better. This one. NO NAILS!

Kopper's post is fairly compelling and made it seem a very straightforward process. After speaking with Peter Lloyd from Deck-Max on the phone (who I have to say is without a doubt one of the most helpful and knowledgeable guys on decking you could every hope to meet) I went with the "original" biscuit system as Kopper used. I brought a 20 and a 5 sqm kit which come with the biscuits and screws as well as driver bits, glue, joiners etc. I strongly suggest getting their decking clamps which are awesome for pulling the boards in line. You'll need at least two decking clamps and a joist clamp. Check the Deck-Max web site where there is a heap of videos showing how it's done.

Next up was timber. I did a bit of further Googling from a number of local suppliers before picking one that was fairly cheap. However I have to say (without naming names) they were a bit "painful" to deal with (issues with delivery charges, someone needing to be on site to accept, missing first delivery date, late for the 2nd, you know, "painful") but eventually the timber was delivered to site.

TIP # 1 - DO NOT BUY TIMBER FROM THE CHEAPEST SUPPLIER! Have you ever had the experience of receiving a pile of lovely new timber all tightly bundled in that metal strapping? It looked beautiful in a neat package on the driveway and I actually had to go out and buy some snips to cut the strapping. When it was cut the strapping and the timber went "sproing!" What had looked like beautiful straight long boards were only on the outside of the pack. In the middle were lots of short boards, and also lots of not very straight boards. Sheesh! You really do get what you pay for, hence TIP #1. I should have known when they were so painful to deal with!

So I sucked it up and went through the pack sorted it into long, medium, and short boards (as well as sub categories for bent and straight!). I then picked out the longest and straightest timbers I had and got down to laying some timber!

TIP # 2 - SET THE FIRST BOARD RIGHT! When starting to lay a new deck, and particularly when using Deck-Max, it's very, very, very important to get the first board laid straight. It will set the scene for how every board following will go as you move across the deck, so take the time to get it right. I didn't have a straight edge long enough to reach across where the first board had to go, the only straight edge I had was the side of the house which runs at a right angle to where the board has to go. Tricky. So to get around this I relied on a bit of High School maths with Pythagoras theorem.

In builder's terms it's also known as a 3-4-5 triangle. For example assuming the board (b) is 4 metres long, measure along the wall (a) from the starting point of the first board for 3 metres and drop a peg in. Attach a string to the inside edge of the peg against the wall that is 5 metres long (c). Get your tape measure out and measure 4 metres (b) out from the wall. When the 5 metre (c) mark for the string meets to the 4 metre (b) mark on your tape measure it will be all square and you can mark the line (b) along the tape measure. It will be a perfect right angle (assuming the house is straight!).

The Deck-Max system uses a set of screws and plugs to secure the first board. There is a special drill bit shown below that has a countersink set to the correct depth that the screw then goes into. You just clamp the board in place and drill down until the collar stops spinning, and you're then at the correct depth. It also drills a pilot hole for the screw making it simple to fix the board down. Run a bead of the supplied "liquid nails" type adhesive (the provided is Bostik Ultraset) on the top of the joist and screw down the board. Once all the screws are in, drop in a few drops of wood glue in the holes and bang in one of the their chamfered hard-wood plugs to cover up the screw. 

Once the glue is dry, cut off the excess with a vibrating multi-tool and you'll have a smooth, nail-free surface!

TIP #3 - READ THE INSTRUCTIONS (RTFM)! If you're using "Original" biscuits you need to make a cut in each board that the biscuit sits in to hold it down (see details below). Before you get carried away and screw down the first board make sure you've put the cuts in on the opposite side for the first row of biscuits (and before you ask, no, I didn't)! You can do it after the fact with the biscuit cutter while it's screwed down but it's tricky. I took the messy glue route, and unscrewed the board, put the cuts in, and screwed it back down!

 As shown below the first three boards are down. Happy days, we're on our way!

3 boards down. A hell of a lot to go!

TIP # 4 - BOTTOMS UP! As per TIP #3 the Deck-Max Original biscuits require that a cut be made in each board with a biscuit cutter aligning with the joists.The best way to achieve this is by turning the board upside down and putting it in place, then mark a line across the board where the joists are with a piece of chalk. The chalk marks are where the biscuit cuts need to go on each edge. Because it's upside down any marking or scratching will be on the bottom of the board, thereby preserving the pristine top! Set your biscuit cutter per the provided Deck-Max specifications, but remember set it for cutting from the bottom side of the board, not the top.

TIP #4 - HOLDING BOARDS TO CUT SLOTS. To help in cutting the slots I set up a special area at the other side of the deck for making the slot cuts with the biscuit cutter. The cutter requires two hands, and without this you have to clamp down the decking timber every time which is time consuming. Grab a length of joist timber (or a couple of pieces) and nail it down on a right angle square across the joists in the direction the boards will run. This will be where you cut the slots in the timber. Just push the decking board to be cut up against the piece of timber, with the chalk marks offset between the joists. The pressure applied to the biscuit cutter will keep it in place leaving both your hands free! Line up the middle of the biscuit cut with your chalk line, turn it on, and push. Easy as! You can see below the area I have set up behind where I am working. After you've cut the slots on one edge, flip it over and make the cuts on the opposite edge to match, again pushing the timber up against your cutting edge board.

Getting your work area organised helps a lot

TIP #5 - TRIAL AND ERROR. Use scraps of decking timber with the biscuit cutter to do a dry run and make sure everything lines up with your cuts. It's very important that the Deck-Max biscuit will sit flush on the bottom to hold the board down securely. I actually screwed together a square out of joist offcuts and had a mini-practice run just to make sure I knew what I was doing. Once it's all set in your head, then try it out on a real board.

After you've made all your cuts on both edges, flip the board back over onto the right side and line it up. It should be spot on with the cuts aligned to the joists underneath. 

Screwing the Biscuit

The biscuits are fitted by being inserting into the slot of the leading edge board (the one that is fixed down), making sure that the bottom of the biscuit is sitting flush on the joist underneath. Then screw it down through the hole in the biscuit on a diagonal, pointing under the leading edge board, but don't screw it all the way in as you need to fit the following board first. Once the leading edge biscuits are fitted, drop some glue on the joist and lay down the next board with the cut edge slots aligned to the trailing edge of the biscuits you just screwed down. Grab a couple of the decking clamps and fit them so that they pull the new board slots onto the biscuit, then using the joist clamp, clamp down the trailing board.

Once the board is set into the biscuit screw down the screws all the way, then run along the board with a "gentle persuader" (aka a large rubber mallet) ensuring the entire length is sitting up against the biscuits. Then start fitting and screwing down the next set of biscuits into the (now) leading edge of the board. The gap is set to 3mm by the flange on the bottom of the biscuit without you having to do a thing! 

The screwed down biscuits and the adhesive are what hold the boards down onto the joists. No nails, brilliant! 

Essentially you then repeat (and repeat and repeat)! 

1. Take the next board and lay it face down
2. Mark the joists with chalk
3. Cut the slots on one edge
4. Cut the slots on the opposite edge
5. Apply adhesive to the joists
6. Fit the board face up
7. Apply deck clamps
8. Apply the joist clamp and finish screwing the last board
9. Give the board a "tap" with the mallet
10. Fit the biscuits and partly screw down

Slowly but surely the decking started to appear!

As if by magic the decking appears!

Let's build the side deck step 2. I've been framed!

Finally all the holes were dug and posts concreted in, and I could progress with the frame. One of the trickiest things in deck building is getting all the posts leveled off.

To assist in leveling I made a water level out of a clear bucket and a length of clear plastic hose. You put a hole in the side of the bucket and insert the hose, then seal it up with some duct tape. Fill the bucket and attached hose with water until the water level in the bucket matches the level you are trying to set while trying to eliminate any air bubbles from the hose. Once the level is set you just move the hose around to the the various posts and mark on them where the level of the water settles to. It will always match what the level in the bucket is. It's cheap as chips and very accurate! There's some great (and easy) instructions on building a water level on the BuildEazy web site.

You can see in the picture below I have leveled off the posts, attached the bearers and started in on laying out the joists.

Bearers and Posts Completed

When it came to attaching the bearers to the posts I chose (for some crazy insane reason) to notch the posts and bolt in the bearers. It's supposed to be one of the strongest methods of attaching bearers to posts. However when you are dealing with a deck clearance height measured in millimeters it's a very hard proposition. The posts are 100x100 and the bearers dual 90x45, so I started out by marking a line in the top of the post 10mm in and cutting vertically down 90mm with the circular saw, and then measuring 90mm down the side to make the horizontal cut. This left a 10mm wedge on top of the post that I then bolted the bearer to using 2 x M6 coach bolts and washers set on the diagonal. If I was going to do it again I think I'd just cut the top of the post off and skew nail the bearers in. Notching is really too fiddly on a low clearance deck

Below is the almost finished frame. I attached the joists to the bearers using standard Pryda Joist Straps with galvanized clouts to fix them down. I brought 2 boxes, one of left and one of right handed straps, and alternated down the length of the joist. You can also see I've dropped in a frame for sizing the single step that will lead from the decking down to the gravel path. I'll bolt it to the stumps, drill down three post holes and then concrete in Pryda Post Anchors to bolt to the corners and front edge.

Frame Completed

Below you can see the entire deck looking down from the garden utility area. Before I laid down the joists I'd also put down a product called Protectadeck which is available from Bunnings. It comes as a 12m long PVC strip that you lay along the top of the bearer and is supposed to extend the life of the wood as it has "wings" that allow the water to drain off the sides stopping any rot developing.

I'd read a bit of debate online as to whether it's worth it or not, but it my mind it made sense as the bearers were made up from ganged timbers, and didn't add that much to the cost of the deck. You can also get it for the joists, but I thought that would be a bit of overkill and after all the joists are going to be filled with nails, negating  any waterproofing. You roll it out and then cut it to length with just a pair of scissors. I then fixed it at each end with galvanized clouts.

Top View

Time the get the young fella to work again! The tops of the joists need to be painted to offer some protection to them, but also because the tops will be visible in the gaps between the decking boards if they're left bare. A quick coat of the old "mission brown" does the trick!

Brush up, brush down. Brush up, brush down

Because I am going to be running a water feature and lights in the deck, there needs to be some electrical power available. Below you can see my mate Peter the sparkie putting in some electrical outlets. ALWAYS use a certified electrician for any mains voltage electrical work! Always.

Some Bright Spark

The dual outdoor rated power points will give me enough outlets to run the pump and lights as well as have a couple to spare.

Power to the People

Here it is all done and ready for the decking to be laid. Below you can also see I have finished the step frame and also extended the ends of the joists with vertical connectors to which facing boards will be attached.

Job Done!

Last thing was putting down a metre of gravel under the deck. Backbreaking!

Now comes the exciting part of laying the deck!