YadaBlog

The deck is really starting to take shape now. The four posts to support the pergola are up and the girder is installed. Now you can start to see the shape and height of the deck.

One long post to support the pergola beams is not as sturdy as I’d like it to be though. It wobbles very slightly in one direction. I am debating whether to support it by sandwiching it between the end joist and another joist using carriage bolts or to pull it out and try to fix the problem before I go on. Find out in the next post what I decide to do.

The girder is made of two 2×8 boards sandwiching the 6×6 posts. They are bolted to each of the four posts with two 1/2″ carriage bolts. To do this ran a level line from the bottom of the ledger (which would be the top of the girder) to the corner post. Once I leveled it, I marked the post. Then I propped one end of the board up and clamped to the post at the level mark. I did the same thing to the other end of the board. I checked level again. This time with a 2×4 that was long enough to span the distance from ledger to girder. Meagan helped by holding the 2×4 at the ledger. Once I was satisfied with the level, I tacked the board at each post. I repeated this process with the second board of the girder. This went a bit faster with Meagan’s help lifting the ends and clamping the end opposite from me. I checked level of this board with the ledger and with the other board. After a few taps with the maul to get it perfectly level, this board was tacked into place.

With the girder boards in place, all that was left was to drill and fasten them with bolts. Easy? No? I thought it would be. I have drilled holes into all kinds of material and it was alway a snap. Never before though had I drilled such a wide hole (1/2″) though so much lumber (more than 8″). I decide to drill and bolt at one post at a time so if there were issues, I could solve the problems as I went rather that drilling all hole first then bolting. The one and a half inche counter sink was easy once I marked the location of the holes. I switched to the 1/2″ by 12″ bit and began boring. The hole started OK but, as I got deeper, the bit began to bind up. The drill motor was beginning to burn up. What I had to do was pull the bit back out enough to let the shaving fall out of the hole. The whole proces for each lag bolt hole was push to bore, pull out to clean, push to bore. This took more time than I had expected but it is finished and the drill is still working.