Fancy Corner Braces & Deck Boards - Play structure part 2

in my first video we set up the posts and support structure for this play structure in this video I'll show you how I installed the flooring and corner braces if you're looking to save money to pieces of exterior grade 3/4 inch plywood would only cost $42 and would work fine for a floor although you might get pools of standing water unless you slightly slanted the joists I decided to spend significantly larger amounts of money and use the same types of composite deck boards as I used on my floating dock sections the idea is that when I disassemble this play structure after my son grows out of it I can reuse the deck boards to extend my dog you have to cut out gaps for the 4x4 posts you could make l-shaped cuts instead of C shaped cuts if you don't have a jigsaw the extra piece at the end just looks nicer when installed I just drilled two holes chopped out the section with a jigsaw keep in mind you'll need a bit of scrap under the cutout to provide structural support for this little section I'm using two lag bolts with half-inch heads to space my deck boards with relatively wide gaps to let air flow and maintain visibility to the ground below you if you have a helper removing staples and tags is a great job for them once you have three or four deck boards in place using a ladder you can just throw the rest up and gradually expand the size of the existing platform because we were using dimensional lumber and deck boards the only time you need to cut a deck board is when going around a tree I generally try to keep these cuts square and in them or joists but every so often having a jig saw allows you to avoid a large gap by going around a tree unless you can lay out all the boards before screwing any down and adjust the gaps all at once you will have one gap that is different I like to work from both sides so that this gap occurs in the middle if you have a table saw you can rip one board to exactly the right size but for this application I just spread out a few boards around the tree to add a few extra large gaps that I could blame on the tree gap what gap the kids don't care some deck boards are slightly longer than others so it will be impossible to line up both ends of the deck boards perfectly you either have to live with that or have a circular saw to cut the ends off flush after we finish if you have a circular saw and use a piece of 2x4 or a guide clamp to screw down to cut the ends of all your deck boards flush or a more polished look if you have built your platform around a tree you could just drive a lag bolt from one of the Cross joists into the tree to keep it very steady but then you risk the tree pushing the middle of your platform up over time as it grows corner braces are very important to keep your platform from wobbling around and I'm going to show you how I made some fancy looking ones with a compound miter saw if you don't have a compound miter saw you can make simple ones much easier and the general concept is the same first you need to figure out how long to make them the trade-off here is how much you want to restrict movement under the play structure the other option is to enclose the bottom of your structure with plywood walls I made relatively small corner braces that go between the first and second inner joists it's hard to beat a chop saw or miter saw for making 45-degree cuts but if you have a carpenter speed square in a circular saw or even a handsaw you can get the same results I marked all of the posts at the same height so that each corner brace would be mounted at the same level I cut more braces using the first one to get them all the same length now you might think I've gotten the angle wrong on the end of these but for the braces that are going between joists this actually works better note that they are not supporting the floor but instead are going to be bolted to the beams as cross bracing make 45-degree pilot holes in the bottom end and pre plate screws to make installation easier these eight two by fours are the inside half of the braces if you don't have a compound miter saw the outside half is just as easy just line the ends up with the four by four post like this if you do have a compound miter saw and want to do a lot of extra work set it for 45 degrees in both directions and cut the ends of the outside braces like this this cut will allow them to meet on the outside of the post like so it can be difficult to get a compound cut like this the exact right length you could use a measuring tape but then you also have to get the angle of the cut right or you can just hold the board up and mark the approximate location and angle in one go my recommendation is to test fit the compound miter cut to find out how much to trim off the other end and then cut the 45 degree diagonal side to get the board to the right length once you get the two halves of the braces set up you can drill pilot holes and connect them with structural screws three structural screws is probably enough to hold the braces together but I went ahead and took them apart and glue them together with wood glue to give them extra strength I used four inch long 5/16 lag screws to hold the braces to the posts and three inch long lag screws to hold them to the beams I also replaced the temporary deck screws with structural screws these corner braces help the wiggle significantly here is the difference between the before and after bracing once you have the decking and braces aren't the play structure can be used and if you are lucky enough to have other trees nearby you can use them as attachment for other interesting play items such as a zip line or this slackline obstacle course that I'm mostly using for the rope ladder as you can see we still need some railings and an easier to use ladder which might be the subject of a third video

Channel: Jay Summet

Views: 11,363

Rating: 4.7777777 out of 5

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Id: yFnuy_4H24w

Length: 6min 8sec (368 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 13 2020