Hidden fasteners and a bolt-down railing make quick work of a beautiful deck
One way to get a clean edge on a deck is to picture-frame the perimeter. On the demonstration deck in the Show Village, we used butt joints with a gap to match the field of Deckorators Voyage decking.
Hidden fastener system establish the gaps
The gaps are established using Deckorators Stowaway Hidden Fastener System. One of the fasteners is used to gap the end of the board and a screw clip is placed atop each joist as the deck board is slid in place.
When the deck board is in place, Kory screws it home.
That’s pretty much it for this part. Place the spacer at the end, place the clips on each joist, slide the board, and screw it off. To get a clean edge, Kim and Kory run all of the decking long and cut it in place.
The end should be cut just shy of the inside face of the outer perimeter frame.
Cut the decking in place
They measure for the outer perimeter board, and will use it to draw the cut line. Kory’s chalk line did not make it on the plane to Las Vegas, so they are scribing it old school.
With the line on the boards, Kory plunges the saw into the line and works his way to the end.
It turns out, the best blade for cutting these deck boards is a cheap framing blade. Expensive fine-tooth finish blades can gum up on heavy-cutting days.
This perimeter board will need to be face screwed, so to keep the fasteners hidden, they use matching plugs from Starborn. Align the grain in the same direction and tap it home.
Pre-assembled railing bolts down into framing
With the decking down, it’s time to knock out the preassembled railing.
In this demonstration, it is an ALX Contemporary railing in Brushed Titanium.
First, they place the posts where they need to be, and they mark it.
While Kory lays out the posts, Kim demonstrates some parlor tricks for the crowd. He has cut into the edges of some of the deck boards and he tries to pry them apart to demonstrate how strong the decking is. It is strong.
The posts will screw down into solid framing. Kory anchors one corner and the re-squares the post before anchoring the next corner.
A two-piece escutcheon plate covers the base.
Now Kim preps the railing section. The end caps screw into the railing and add ½ inch to the railing section, so the posts are spaced apart 6 feet, 1-1/8 inches.
Under the bottom rail, he screws a plug for a support block, which is then used to mark the space for the receiving plug, and then the railing is plopped into place.
After the sections are screwed into the posts, there is not much left to do except remove the shipping straps and set the solar-powered post caps into a bed of silicone on top.
—This video is part of a series of videos shot at the 2019 International Builders' Show in the Professional Builder Show Village onstage at ProTradeCraft's Demonstration House. See all of the videos here.