Hey Folks, Did some work on the deck over the last few days. Some progress, but we may have to undo a lot of what we did depending on some testing I do over the next few days.
I made a huge rookie mistake and it is about to bight me in the ass. I assumed that all 2X10 lumber was 1.5X9.5. In reality there appears to be a bit of variation in dimensions. Also, I attempted to place all the joists with crown up however, at least two of the joists got installed upside down. Along with some pretty severe crowning on a few joists I have a significant amount of variation in the heights of the tops of the joists. Now, I should have done some work in the beginning, before nailing everything in place to try and align the heights of the joists better, so I might have to go back, rip out a couple of joists and flip them over and hopefully get things to line up a bit better. There are a couple of places where there is a half inch difference between one joist and the joist next to it. That is definitely a problem. I need to figure out if there are a couple of joists that are just badly crowned up and I can maybe grind them down a bit, or possibly just flipping a couple of joists will do the trick. I won't know until I get up there and start sliding some boards around and seeing where the problem is. It came to light as I started putting in the blocking between joists. You could really see how badly the blocking lined up in a few places. Oh well, another set back, and another learning experience. Not sure how much more learning I can handle. *GRIN* Friday was a killer day as we had to haul, quite literally, a ton of lumber up the four flights of stairs to the courtyard. We purchased all the deck boards, plus the rails for the railing, a couple of extra 2X10 boards for the blocking, and an odd 2X8 for the center span where all the deck boards will meet. We must have made 25 trips up and down the stairs. I rigged up a couple of slings from flat webbing that we could drape over our shoulder and load up each side with lumber. Then the two of us would lift it and walk the load up the stairs. It saved wear and tare on the hands and forearms but was a killer on the back and shoulders. anyway, not sure how much of a set-back this will be, but the deck project continues. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (412) 268-9081
