Hello Dan, My but you make me feel so much better. I have a small deck (8x32) on the South side of my mobile home which was started last summer. Interestingly enough I originally contracted with a local handyman to construct the deck. It took him forever to set the uprights during which he managed to cut the telephone line twice. (man, the phone company was hot the second time but I just gave them the name and address of the poor sucker) After several more weeks he framed the base for the deck floor. When I came home one afternoon I inspected the uprights and support beams and determined that, no way in Hell would that construction safely support a roof. I finished the flooring myself after firing the incompetent fool and chalked the whole thing up as a bad dream. About that time my poor van decided to roll over and die. It only had 200,000 miles on it but this left me with no way to haul the lumber for the side rails and such. Well, I finally got a new to me van so now I suppose I will finish the railing and contemplate what I am going to do about a roof. Oh well, there will be days such as these I suppose... (LOL) Cy, the Ancient Okie...
_____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dan Rossi Sent: Monday, July 30, 2007 11:18 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [BlindHandyMan] All notched up and no place to go. Here is an update on the never-ending saga of my deck project. It still amazes me how long it takes to get things done. Between working all day, having other things to do in the evenings, and then having to take weekends off here and there for family gatherings and such hinders just how much work I can get done. Also, after noticing that bricks were falling out of the house while I was hammer drilling through them for the ledger board made me decide to get the place pointed sooner rather than later. So, I had to put the project on hold while they were pointing the house. anyway, over the weekend, Teresa and I got our six by six posts standing up in the post brackets. I used some 1 X 4 boards to brace up the posts. I pounded wooden stakes into the ground, then while Teresa got the posts plumb, I used my finishing nail gun to tack a diagonal brace from the post to the wooden stake. Two braces on each post perpendicular to each other to keep them plumb. We finished bolting the ledger board in place and then started marking the posts to cut them to height. We first used a water level and then checked it by running a 12 foot long 1X4 from the ledger to the post and sitting a 4 foot long level on top of the 1X4. The two methods compared perfectly in every case. I was not about to attempt to cut the six by sixes while they were still standing so we knocked them down. I really wish I could have gotten my hands on a larger circ saw because making four perfectly measured cuts around the circumference and then cutting through the middle with a hand saw was tough work. I can't usually make a single perfectly measured cut. Notching the posts was even harder. We had to make one cut across the post 9.5 inches down from the top end. then make a cut along the side of the post from the top end, to the cross cut. Then flip it over and make a matching cut on the opposite side. Then finally, using a hand saw, cut through the 9.5 inch long little middle strip that the circ saw left behind. I got a new hand saw out of the deal though, after nearly passing out trying to use my old, dull, slightly bent, short hand saw. I now have a 26 inch long double toothed, cut on push and pull, sharp as hell saw. By the time we finished the posts, it was getting late on Sunday evening and we were beat and hungry. so, Teresa slapped a coat of water seal on the posts while I cleaned up the tools. The posts are all still laying around the yard, and hopefully we can manage to get them standing and plumbed up again during the week. I am hoping that the brick guys will knock out the wall under my dining room window some time this week. If they don't, I can't start framing the deck until they do. that's the latest and greatest on the forever deck. Later. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: HYPERLINK "mailto:dr25%40andrew.cmu.edu"[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (412) 268-9081 No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.476 / Virus Database: 269.10.25/926 - Release Date: 7/29/2007 11:14 PM No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.476 / Virus Database: 269.10.25/926 - Release Date: 7/29/2007 11:14 PM [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
