Tips and Tricks for Trex Composite Deck Install with Camo Marksman Tool and Screws

howdy this is Gus today were installing some deck blanks I've got Trek's PVC ii composite deck II the reason we went with tricks is my wife down the color she liked and it only came in tricks that's why we dress my then did some research trying to figure out what would be the best fasteners after doing my research I came across this these screws in this tool here this is called a camo marksman's Pro and it basically latches on to your five and a half inch plank and you let it go it holds it and then it makes a perfect 3/16 inch gap between each board you then take the screws and load them in each side and they go in at a 45 degree angle into the sides of the boards so you don't see them from up top you can kind of see them but they're mostly hidden and I'm guessing that's why they call it camo so far I'm liking it it comes with a couple extra bits over time I imagine they're gonna wear out just because of the way it's drilling in and then it's hitting this stop and it keeps drilling until it can't drill anymore so it's probably kind of nicking the edge here on the bit every time slowly wearing it out but for now it's there holding up I've already probably put I know 800 screws in this deck so far and still trucking along the instructions say that you should line this thing up straight on the studs here that you're drilling into rafters whatever you want to call them but if you do that there's a slight bulge from the previous one and your gaps are going to be bigger so what I've been doing to counter or counteract that is I've just been kind of off-center just a little left and right each time and it seems to be working pretty well the instructions do tell you when you drill this thing in that to do it slowly at first and not to put a whole lot of weight on this but just hold it stiff basically you want to make sure that these guards are all the way down now you know it's flush and on the boot material the other thing you want to make sure is that everything is level because if this is way above your rafter you got some gap there you're gonna have some wonky things happen so you want a nice level base to begin with all right so that's level that's flat you put a little pressure on not much just enough to hold it still and then like I say you go in slowly and those screws are designed to bite immediately and they do and then once it goes in a little ways you can speed it up now what I've found is if I don't go all the way I leave a quarter of an inch and leave that one in place and then put this one in okay I'm screwed it holds better sometimes it'll do some wonky things jumping on you and when it gets to the end and you hit that stop it's going to keep screwing that screw in and until it no longer engages with the bit and you'll hear a kind of oil thump or maybe you don't bump and that kind of comes loose in your hand so you kind of clean up some of them the other thing you need to really make sure is that you make sure these stay clean every once in a while you get a screw that won't go all the way in won't go in a real easy and you have to put a little more pressure on it and it'll start chewing into the material and these are designed to where it'll spit the material back out and it comes back up in here and if you just don't clean this and you go to put the next screw in it'll definitely not go in very well because it's already gummed up so make sure this is clean every time and go from there okay one other thing I forgot to mention I don't remember if it was in the instructions or not but this is what I found it really useful ways most of these tricks boards they're not straight but they're very pliable so just take this one as an example and you can see it just slowly gets the gap gets bigger and bigger and bigger and the way you deal with that is you grab one of these and you reverse it so that it's squishing out instead of squeezing in and every few feet you'll move it as you're going along just to close that gap down and get it to where it's right where you want it there you go one more kick okay little trick or tip here basically I've got all the hidden ones back here and I don't want all this just front pretty stuff to have all these boogers because they're easy to see unless you've got once they're kind of buried in a crease so what I do is I figure out where my joist is take a hammer and I make a hole nail back out and I hammer in just to get it started and then you slowly carefully do this in now you want to seat it I don't know sixteenth or an eighth of an inch underneath the surface now you're gonna have this bold you all the way around and if you take your hammer and just kind of fold it around basically the whole thing and there you go

Channel: Gus Does This

Views: 111,685

Rating: 4.5695066 out of 5

Keywords: DIY, GUS, Backyard Deck, Deck Build, TREX, Composite Decking, Camo Marksman Pro, Tricks, Tips, Advice, Deck Building Tools, Hidden Screws, Gus Does This

Id: xCfzzJisMko

Length: 7min 21sec (441 seconds)

Published: Fri May 08 2020