How to lay a composite deck. Cut + Fix the deck. Final part of How to build a deck by Robin Clevett

hi i'm robin clever welcome back to my channel for the fourth and final part of my how to build a deck series [Music] i'm ready to go i've got all of the decking stacked here i've got a saw here and the deck is prepared so this is quite easy now for me it's a matter of taking the boards round onto my table cutting them all to length stacking them in a pack and then we can get it all fixed so keep tuned because this is going to look amazing i'm using composite prime it's a premium quality composite deck it's beautiful material it's a wide plank that i've got it's going to look absolutely fantastic i'm going to cut all the boards i'm going to fix all the boards so keep tuned and check out how i get along all the deck is ready to go down all my tape is in i've made myself a decent saw table on the end of the deck to allow me to pull my boards in cut them off here slide them onto the deck now i've also done a drawing or a sketch and this is done by using a couple of sheets of lined paper and i've plotted the number of courses on using each line as a row of deck and then i've got all my positions where my joints need to be it enables me to go along and measure now allowing my five millimeters for expansion on the ends and cutting a series of boards for different positions and that enables me to speed the process up not that i'm trying to rush this is the sort of job i really like to take my time it's going to be down for a long time and i'm totally enjoying doing it so i'm not rushing um but it just simplifies it a little bit more and using a bit of lined paper it stops trying to have to draw it all out it takes a few minutes to do it and it really really helps just like any other carpentry and joinery job it's all about the setting out it's all about the cutting list it enables you to work out that you've got enough material before you even embark on something and it speeds the job up so the very first job is i've cut my datum or my ball board all the way through this is where everything starts from it's from the edge of the deck and i'm working back to the building with a rip at the back so i've set everything out and the first job would be to ping a line all the way through on the back of the first board to enable me to get it absolutely true and straight and then i'll remove the first board and i'll be using the starter clips the starter clips fix on the end here and basically hold the board just like this and then we run a whole series of connecting clips through the idea is you want to put these in get the next row in and then tighten them down my saw table here when the material is on the bed of the saw and it lays across here it's all nice and flat i'm going to put a stop on to make sure the lengths are all absolutely perfect where i'm doing repeat cuts and then it's a matter of board saw push up against the stop cut and stack where my boards are joining there's a double joist and the reason for that is because we want to clip for the end of each of the boards composite prime recommend that you have a double joist to catch the ends of both boards also we're spaced at 300 millimeter sensors again this is a requirement for composite prime and indeed quite a lot of other composite boards so everything's prepared it's all measured out we're using a five millimeter gap between the ends of the boards we're using a 10 millimeter gap where it meets a solid building or structure let's get on cut some boards and get this deck fixed the boards i'm using are 3.6 meters long so providing i've got plenty of length on here then i can set this up for repeat cuts perfect uh so i've set my fence up got my board in this is the stop i've got 17 of these to cut so i'm going to get on with this [Applause] [Music] so let's attach the line exactly where we want it with that board and so we've got a perfect line all the way through now so i'm going to get one row all the way through and the reason i want to get one row all the way through is that i can check my return lengths carry on cutting the series of piles get them over there and then we can assemble it all in one go so the clips are on these are the boards this is the first board it's a matter of pulling it over to the clip slotting it in just like that and following my line on the inside now technically speaking these boards if they've been stored correctly these composite brine boards should be really nice and true but you know if they've been standing around they've not been stacked correctly there may be some movement and don't rely on any material being dead straight it's always best to check it with a line but when you're using deck boards where you've got a space you know it's a bit more forgiving than having something which is locking together for example because you can actually pull a line through every fourth course if you wanted to gauge it out and then you could just keep to the line so if you are getting some variation you can just keep coming back to where you should be and you're never going to pick up the odd millimeter of space where they're running parallel to one another so that's it let's get this first one through and then we can start filling it in so i've got all of my boards cut for everywhere now i like to do it that way i like to set it out make a list cut everything to a stop now now i can get rid of this now i can move it away from where we're working because we're done with it as i say and then we can start laying the boards which is the next job so when we're laying the boards as i said the first thing we did was get one through nice and straight and then we start using the clips that come with the composite prime system now the clips are innovative they got their own screws which are colour matched and the screw passes through its own hole it's countersunk so there's no need to over tighten these and spread the clips apart now the clips work that when you slot them into the edge of the board you start the screw off until it gets down until it bites now because the screw is nice and parallel there's no way it's going to start wanting to pull the clip over and then you don't tighten them until you've got that row in the next lot of clips in you're happy where it's at and then you can go along and tighten the clips through on the joins of the board so i can just sort of give you an idea now they are a torx screw and composite primes supply you with a really nice neat thin screwdriver bit as opposed to a typical small one you might fit in there and the trouble with that one is is that it's going to catch the edge of the groove whereas the one that you get with the screws is much much thinner and if i just give you an idea of that so i'll just tighten this one up here this is ready to be tightened now and it pulls both the boards down perfectly flat now if you don't want to over screw these things i would say if you're using an impact driver like this you want to have it set on a setting which is quite gentle you'd want to ram them in we have a tendency in england to over fix everything and i'm a strong believer in enough is enough and you can set the torque on these as well so that might be a a good idea but that's it it's enough and it's pulling it down it's clamping it down the idea is the clip is slightly shallower than the depth of this shoulder here so it will pull it down to where it wants to be and of course if you're screwing into a timber frame timber is quite soft and that's quite a small surface area so if you keep on driving that in the chances are it would compress into the timber and distort and we don't want to do that so now we're going to go through and get all of these boards fixed i'll get my fence out of the way i'm done with that now no more cutting until i do scribes and rips now it's a matter of me putting the next board in i'm using a aluminium just a straight edge there just to keep the ends of the boards true they're all cut exactly the same size so it's perfect really for this kind of thing oh the old sun look at that we love a sunny autumnal day and then we can put a clip in ivory end to hold it where we want it and then i'll tighten the row we just keep doing this that's the one put one at this end i'm not walking on my frame because i've got muddy feet and i don't want to get it muddy and that's it now we can go and tighten these ones up now and these tight a few courses same time you can feel it biting down lovely the beautiful thing about these clips is is in the future let's say you want to get a board out you can actually release these clips by unscrewing and sliding the board out from the end which i think is quite a nice touch there's my five mil spacer on the length pull that out back in the caddy what a satisfying job done so many timber decks in the past and you've got to fix them through the face and this is just lovely there's no fixings on the show it is just [Music] perfect [Music] [Music] [Music] like so many jobs it's all in the preparation and so i say cutting all of my boards first it's lovely because all i have to do now is literally go along and get these clips on push the boards in and it's super quick i've got two front edges of my deck now i'm particular about having a full board at both those front edges now when i built my structure i knew which decking i was using i knew i was going to use the composite prime i knew the dimension and i also knew roughly how far the spacing was but in construction when you're using lots of material that you're putting together and you're building up over a series of panels or boards your final measurement is going to vary slightly and that's all due to various different factors it's just you might get a ball which is got a slight bend in it and you might be pulling it through to a gauge or a spacing we start with a starter clip now my starter clip for the front edge here needs to go on now then i need to drop my board in and then i can slide in the clamps or the actual brackets afterwards which is a nice touch so the other the other thing i did here is i made my deck structure to where i knew it would be within a full board and then afterwards i finished the actual exact measurement once i had that board in i knew exactly how far to take it and that's all to do with the fact that if you tried to do this before it's not an exact science you are going to gain and you're going to lose and you wouldn't be where you wanted to be so i've got plastic plywood shims i've got a plastic plywood fascia which runs all the way around there's a gap and it's packed off the structure the air can go through circulate our new fascia which goes over the front is actually also on spacers to allow all the air to go through and make sure everything is properly ventilated so i've got just put the tape on the last bit here so if i get that done now here's my decking tape it's a wonderful material it's really look at this super flexi it's got a great sticky back it's got an infinite shelf life the adhesive as well so i'm just going to stick this on top and the adhesive is a really nice material so i'm going to just stick this through here if you've seen part three i talk about the tapes and you see me using it but it's lovely it's a nice material it's gonna prolong the life of the deck i mean in this instance here i've got a full board over here so you could argue no moisture it's going to get to it but let's do it we've got it let's do it and make a pocket job of it now we just need to get our starter clips on and to do that i am going to put a spacer in between the board and my offcut here i'm going to whack a piece in get them exactly where i want them and screw straight through my tape through the starter clip [Applause] and drops a good one so i'm just going to repeat that process all the way through these nice sharp screws these right let's get this last board in on this front so the object is drop it in here like so now we're going to slot our clips through and that is a lovely finish because it's nice and tight against the starter clips and this is a really nice way of getting it fixed incidentally you could even use this technique if you wanted to remove a board you can unscrew them with the thin screwdriver bit slide your clips out and quite easily just like this take a board out slide a board out or even loosen the clips off and try and slide it out but you know that you can slide them back in the future which i think is pretty good where you've got a row which is going to be against a building or a fixed structure in my case it goes against my bifold doors and i've explained earlier but what happens is is my boards run over and then they cover the seal so the seal is hidden away and the floor is much much closer to being a level threshold which is all the fashion these days so what's happening now is we need a 10 millimeter gap against any big structure be it a window a wall a post and this board here represents the one that's going in next so i have got a course in here but this is the one that's going to go in here i've set it here prescribing and this is the easiest way of doing it so i've got an off cut a 10 mil spacer i'll push the two together and i'll just go along with a series of of marks and this is exactly where i'm going to cut it here for example and this is going to dog leg around this corner so i've got a spacer block which is again 10 millimeters and what i'm going to do there is i'm just going to mark the outside of that here give it a little mark use my block and spacer for this bit move that along again here so we're taking out this effectively which gets us around there and then we just need to go along making sure our board's pushed up put a series of marks on it's going to be straight anyway but i'll just do a couple of marks to show you there and here so that's what's coming off all of that there and that's about it when you're cutting composite material so here i've got my composite prime board you can treat it exactly like you would a good quality timber or hardwood or something like that so the basic rules are for example if you're using a jigsaw i always scroll and scribe from the underneath and that's because as the blade cuts down it doesn't chip it out if i was using a circular saw let's say for this rip i've got a blade which has got a good number of teeth it's ideal for this kind of product okay it's a fine cutting blade and again i would suggest that you mark the back and you cut through because a circular saw as it cuts up is pulling the stock through the board and it may chip off the face and also you've seen us using a chop saw which is absolutely ideal especially for a wide board keeping everything nice and true so i'll cut out this section now for the post with the jigsaw and um then we'll rip this down on our table saw so not a lot of you might have a table saw but it's absolutely perfect for me um obviously got one i'm a chippy i carry all that sort of stuff so i'll rip it down on a table saw but even a really good sharp hand saw you could do these rips but it's going to be a bit of an r make for you but it's a perfect job all the same so let's go on and do that [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] uh [Music] so my last row that i've scribed in to go here i want to put that in place put my next row in and then slide my clips through like i did on the end and that will hold it now how i'm actually going to bond it or secure it to the sill we've got a 10 mil gap but we've worked it so the board sits on the sill but what i'm going to do is use a little bit of polymer adhesive it's a hybrid polymer and it's great for something like this it's super sticky it doesn't set absolutely solid it's really strong good in low temperatures and all i'm going to do is put a dob everywhere where there's a joist effectively not too much just enough and it's just to take out any vibration in the future so we're just going to whack a bit here so i'm just putting a dob which comes just above the height of the joist if you like so the deck just sits into it you won't see it it's completely covered but it adds a little buffer and something that will just keep it just keep it down so i'm going to slot my next course in first to the clips that are there there we go just check that yeah that's right so before i snooker myself i'll get my rips board in onto my little dubs of polymer push it up tight against the frame then i can drop these boards in here and then slide my clips in and then i'll pull it back to give me my expansion joint as mentioned five ml spacer and repeat the process pull my clips in [Music] so [Music] so another very popular way of trimming your deck i know that a lot of guys or contractors i know they lay their decks and they just fly all the boards over the ends providing they don't need the off cut somewhere else during the construction so what i've done here is i've left a few boards over to demonstrate how we do that actually in situ so we use a rail saw ideally you want a rail saw for this and we're going to line through the edge of the rail exactly where we want to cut it in our case it's just with this rubber edge now the beauty of a rail saw and something like this is the fact that you can set the depth exactly right it's very straightforward and i've also got some fine adjustment here so i can just just just cut through the material even leave an onion skin just something really thin to enable me to not hit my deck structure in my case my rubber i don't want to hit that there because that's protecting the joists so i've got it taken down just enough tiny bit more we're going to give it i'm happy with that then it has got as with a lot of rail saws it's got some rubbers on the bottom which stop it from slipping and sliding around however just as an insurance policy when i line it up so let's get it lined up where i'm going to start it i'm going to use this as a straight edge to get it up to where i want it to be cutting i'm going to tap a little wedge in here and that's going to stop that from moving so as i'm pushing it through it's not going to want to move anywhere as i say it's like a insurance policy we do the same on the other end uh [Applause] [Applause] the deck is all laid and the next job for me is to run round a fascia now there are a couple of options when you're using this material composite prime there is a borno section that you can run at 90 degrees and then mitre on the corner and run round because i'm not using this as a step on step off we're going to have a rockery carrying on around the front the earth is going to come up to around about 300 mil and it's going to be planted with grasses so there isn't really an entrance on and off of this deck apart from over in the corner so i wanted a bit more of a contemporary finish and i'm using a fascia now the fascia is going to be in two rows and it's going to run around with a little gap and then the earth can come up to that spot there which is absolutely perfect so to fit this fascia we've got to use a screw i'm going to use a small stainless steel facade screw but i'm still going to pilot them and i'm going to countersink them just so we get a neater finish and we're going to do all of those in series so i've just got a very simple rudimentary device here and that is effectively going to sit on top of the fascia we'll go around rough cutting it all in so it's all cut and then we'll pilot them all out through this block so they're all exactly the same as similar spacing and then it's just a matter of fixing them up now i'm also keeping my expansion gap for the correct expansion so it also gives us a continuation of all of the other gaps it's nice and neat and that again allows for all that lovely airflow and protect all of our deck structure underneath so i'm going to get on now measure it all cut it all i'm going to put a miter in the corners it's a little bit thin for a miter but i prefer that to a butt but i've got some colour matched sealant which when i put the mitre together i'll squash it in between i'll push it up nice and tight it will bond the mitre together and it will also come out and then when it's gone off i'll just tease it off with a blade and it'll look sweet so right we're going to crack on get this done then we're finished and we can call it a day [Applause] uh [Applause] ah hey ah so uh so let's fix a block so it's going to sit on while i get the corner right this is only going to be just while i get the other end fixed fine yep [Music] [Music] so that's it that's all of the fascias running round now and um quite a tricky job it's quite a thin material so it's kind of snaky a bit and you've got to make sure your spacers are all nicely spaced and keep it nice and true but just like anything it's all about the setting out and you might have seen me pierce the shims on the back so when i put it up the shims were actually on the tip of the screw it just means that because the shims are obviously slightly smaller and i wanted them to be smaller because i don't really want to see them anywhere if i can help it then it was a good little solution to do that and then as you saw it didn't take very long to put round and we are almost there just a little bit of cleaning up getting the tools away and that's another job finished and i really am impressed with the product it's a bit of a flat light today so you can't really see the tone and texture it's actually quite nice it's got a lot of color in it and i think the light today a lot of cloud so you're getting much more of a flat color so the idea behind this is that as my building silver's down it's going to get somewhere near this so i'm really really pleased and i'm also i love the wide planks i think they're lovely it feels like concrete to walk on super super solid so all in all i'm really pleased with the outcome thanks so much for watching this whole series so this was part four if you didn't see part one two and three maybe have a look at the channel and check them out thanks for subscribing and i will see you soon on the next job you

Channel: Robin Clevett

Views: 166,977

Rating: 4.9248581 out of 5

Keywords: Composite decking, building a deck, how to build s deck, decking tape, decking protection, decking structure, robin clevett, trex decking, best decking, wooden decking problems, composite prime, Robin Clevett, How to cut composite boards, cutting composite boards, composite, decking screws, screwing a deck, best composite deck boards, part 4, final part of how to build a deck, building a deck Robin Clevett

Id: kY5I2m3XhLo

Length: 38min 35sec (2315 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 31 2020