Hi Dan, Rather than trying to dado an angled dado, how about cutting a slightly narrower dado and then shaping the end of the lower rail slipping into it?
I don't know how you are cutting your dados but unless you are using a dado set in a table saw you won't have a good chance of getting it right. ----- Original Message ----- From: Dan Rossi To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, April 07, 2008 4:10 PM Subject: [BlindHandyMan] More deck stuff. Yesterday I took care of one piece of work on the railings that has been haunting me all winter. One deck post needed to be mounted to the house. I have come to hate hammer drilling into these bricks. I don't know what they are made of, but whatever it is, it is a lot harder than an expensive, brand new, masonry bit. First we stood the post up in place. Then we marked where the holes should be to put them in a brick and not in crumbling mortar. Took the post down and drilled half inch holes in all three spots. Then we drilled one inch countersink holes so that the heads of the expansion bolts would be below the surface of the post. Then we stood the post back in place and used the hammer drill to drill through the post and into the brick. The bit wasn't nearly long enough so I got about 3/4 inch into the brick before I bottomed out against the 4X4 post. Took the post away and then finished drilling the bricks to depth. By the time I got to the third and final hole, I was cursing and swearing, sweating like a pig, and having to take breaks before I got the hole to depth. It is just damn tough brick. Anyway, got the post back in position, hammered the six inch expansion bolts in, and cranked them home. We will definitely pull bricks out of the wall before those bolts come out. I had to rout a dado in one of the other posts that somehow got installed without a dado. I then cut and fit all the bottom rails for the railing. This weekend I will begin assembling the railings. there is one post left to deal with. It will be a bit tricky. It is on the transition where a little spur of deck wraps around the back of the house, it slopes downward to meet up with the landing outside the back door which is a bit lower than the rest of the deck. I need to dado one side, but then bevel the edges of the dado so that a 2X4 rail will fit nice and clean as it will be at an angle to the post itself and not sticking straight out. I'll also have to bevel half the top of the post so that the railing will also make a smooth transition from horizontal to downward sloping. I bet that takes either a whole lot of time, or I will have to use that extra post that is waiting in the wings. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (412) 268-9081 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.519 / Virus Database: 269.22.8/1363 - Release Date: 4/7/2008 8:56 AM [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
