Time to build a deck. Laying down the bearers

Now that the holes are in and signed off by the council and the posts laid in and concreted, it's time to get on with building the frame. First step is getting the bearers down.

There's nothing better than delivery day! It means the wait is over and the fun starts. I've taken two weeks off work to get the frame done, so I'd better get on with it.

Who's this little creature hiding under the woodpile? This one is a bit of a house pet and lives in our front-yard. We've named it 'Lizzy' the lizard. Lizzy is an Australian blue-tongued lizard, here helping inventory the delivery.

There's 9 bearers required to support the back deck. Looking below at the plan you can see that some of them are quite long! The bearers will be made up of 2 x 90 x 45 MGP10 treated pine, nailed together, and offset to make the length of the bearer required.

I'll refer to the "left" side as everything on the left hand side of the plan, and the "right" side infers the right hand side of the plan as shown.

9 bearers in red

Below you can see the first bearer clamped up and ready to be nailed. I've alternated the joins to line up with the tops of the posts, giving the assembled bearer maximum strength. The clamps shows where the join points are located. 

For nailing and attaching to the stumps I am going 100% simple. The two 90x45's will be nailed together from either side down the length of the bearer, and then skew nailed into the top of the posts. Finally I will gang nail the bearer to the post on either side with Pryda 50 x 100mm galvanised strap nails.

First bearer clamped and ready to be nailed

There's a couple of tricky joins on the "right" required to be cut where two of the horizontal bearers need to connect in with another that crosses over at the "right" end of the deck on an angle. To maximise the strength of the join I'll cut half lap joints positioned over the top of the posts. 

To create the joins, once the horizontal bearers were down I then nailed together the timbers for the angled bearer, and then laid that beam across the ends of the bearers so I could mark out the joins with a pencil. After a few plunge cuts with a multi-tool, there was really no other way to create the join other than with a trusty "old school" wooden mallet and chisel. Back to basics! 

As you can see below it was a tricky cross over for the angled half-lap join. The result however is a piece of art! A shame to cover it up.

Angled half-lap joint complete

Where the centre bearer joins into the "right" side cross bearer was a little more straight forward to make. As this was a straight cut I set the circular saw to a depth of 45 mm (1/2 of the 90 mm timber) and made the two required cross cuts, then chiselled the joins out with a mallet and chisel. 

All the timber end cuts were sprayed with Tanalised Ecoseal to help preserve the life of the timber cut.

Centre bearer half lap joint. Another work of art!

Below shows the first completed three bearers in place with the two horizontal cross bearers linked in to the angled cross-bearer.

Three bearers completed

I now start laying out the fourth bearer, the longest one in entire the deck, measuring 14 metres in length. This is the only one which runs the full horizontal length.

Laying out the 14 m long bearer

Below is looking from the "right" end, showing the three completed horizontal bearers and the angled bearer

The fourth and longest bearer

Looking down from the "left" end of the deck back you can start to see the whole deck taking shape.

The four longest and trickiest bearers finished

On the "left" side there are two small bearers that need to wrap around the paved area to support where the decking joins up. 

The below photo shows the first one laid in.

Laying in the top shorter bearer and checking it for level

To make the decking "wrap around" a small bearer needed to have another half-lap join made to join into the shorter horizontal bearer. This completes the "left" side.

The "left" end of the deck bearers completed

I'm starting to get good at these half-lap joins! Below is a closer view of where the deck will meet the paving.

Another half-lap joint completed

Below shows the last three short bearers on the "right" side of the deck that support the decking where is joins into the side gate.

The "right" side short bearers completed

That's all nine bearers in and connected! Joining aside, it wasn't too hard a job, and best of all, they're all level! Bonus.

Next up I have to attach the ledger board into the concrete slab of the house to complete the bearers. The come the floor joists!