Sunday Night Status

Deja vu. Haven't I done a status report every Sunday since the before times?

Update: Yes, yes we have. https://treeshousejournal.blogspot.com/2020/07/sunday-night-status_19.html, https://treeshousejournal.blogspot.com/2020/07/sunday-night-status.html, https://treeshousejournal.blogspot.com/2020/07/saturday-night-status.html, https://treeshousejournal.blogspot.com/2020/06/sunday-night-status.html

Painted the house last thing Saturday.

Sunday was all about the "frame."

So many problems with the frame. The non-45-degree miters were tough. The "ladder" blocking was 1/16" low (to avoid being high), which made the east and west frames "sag" and required shims. On the plus side, adding the silly little triangle by gluing it with cyanoacrylic glue (because it was too small to screw) worked perfectly. There's a reason the woodworkers I watch on YouTube like CA glue. Can't use it much, though--Fiberon expands and contracts with temperature. 

Cyanoacrylate glue to the rescue. (I just like saying that word.)

Only the lowest tread is screwed in, but two more are cut and ready. (The others are just for show.)

Note to self: Saying you want a 4' stair is fine, but make the stringers 3'-10" so you can get four full treads from a 16' board. Next time. These are 4'-2", wasting a lot of $3/LF material.

Running Out of Supplies; Fear the End is Near

As the lower deck turns to Fiberon, I thought it would be useful to conduct an inventory.

(4) 16' solid

(9) 16' groove

(20) 12' groove

I think that's not enough solid, which I need for: the frame, the treads, and the handrails. There are six frame pieces; let's number them from 1 at the west to 6 at the east.

16' board: #1 (4' 2"), #2 (4' 2"), #5 (5' 4"), 2' 4" left

16' board: #4 (8' 2"), #6 (6' 10"), 1' left

16' board: #3 (3' 4"), 3x front treads @ 4' 2", 2" left

16' board: 2x front treads @ 4' 2", 7' 8" left

This assumes that I'll use grooved boards for the treads inside, where the edge isn't visible.

I need 28' 6" of railing for the lower deck, 16' 6" for the upper deck. Maybe I should order 4 more 16' solid boards @ $44--that's $176 + $40 delivery, $238 with tax. Or, I could buy 6, 8' boards and sand, stain, and polyurethane them. Dunn Lumber sells C-grade, Vertical Grain (CVG) Douglas Fir 2x6 for $6.58 a linear foot, so $315.84 without tax, delivery, stain, or polyurethane. I'm concerned that a Fiberon handrail won't look as good as it should.

Fiberon boards are 5.25" with 3/16" between them. It's about 3' 8" from the house to the frame at the top of the stairs--we have to use 16' boards for the deck. 44" / 5.4375" is 8 rows and 1/2" I have to deal with. I'll have to verify the 44" in the field, but I'm inclined to hold the deck away from the house to make everything work out. Either way, that uses up the 16' grooved boards with one left over.

I'll fill in the prow with 12' boards and hopefully have some 4' 2" scraps for stair treads. Actually, I realized just now that the inventory did not include a bunch of ~3' scraps from the upper deck. I'd have to pencil it all out, and I'm wasting daylight.

Ten Days

More staining to do. More joist taping. I want to paint the house where it meets the deck. Then, cut and install the "frame" boards and lay down the decking.

Sunday, July 12

Monday, July 13

Tuesday, July 14

Friday, July 17

Sunday, July 19

Tuesday, July 21

Wednesday, July 22

Compared to...

Saturday, June 6

Tuesday, June 23 (17 days)

Sunday, June 28 (22 days)

Sunday Night Status

A fairly productive weekend, considering how long the list is. Not only how long (how many items) but how wide (so many steps, posts, joists, and so on).

This is the weekend that I had to stomp on a 4x4 to finish a cut from my anemic cordless circular saw.

Copper Green Brown (long story)

I cut ten 4x4 posts, then notched them--not a trivial task, since it involves aligning circular saw cuts from two sides and finishing with a hand saw. Once they were notched, I marked and drilled for 20 through-bolts. Just the countersink--the process I developed on the upper deck calls for making the post plumb in both directions and holding it that way before drilling and installing the bolts.

In one big push after dinner on Sunday, I cut the stair stringers and applied wood preservative. You only need preservative on cut edges, so if you cut a 2x4, you just "paint" the cut end with preservative. Now picture the 12 cuts made on each stringer.

I made a note to myself to be careful applying preservative to the stringers. For the upper deck, I lined them up on the wall in the narrow alcove where Casey's bath meets the breezeway. I "painted" all the edges while breathing in the stuff I had already painted. So, for the lower deck, I applied most of the preservative with the stringers in place. Lots more fresh air. You know how cop movies always have an officer who's just days from retirement get shot? Well, on the last board, I flung a bunch of preservative at my bare arm. I washed it thoroughly and immediately. I haven't turned into the Hulk yet.

Tomorrow, following the list, I'll install the stringers (using Simpson LSCZs at the top) and continue down the list. I think the next thing is 2x4 "X" bracing, the Simpson DTT1Z tension devices, then mounting all ten posts. Then I stain everything black with the Valspar "Darkest Night" stuff--the stair stringers are almost all painted, the deck joists almost all not, but I do have to go around the edge of the whole deck. Then I paint the wall of the house where it meets the deck. At some point, I have to install black joist tape on every single joist. I won't get to the decking before August at this rate.

Next Steps, Get it?

Saturday was entirely consumed by my plan to make the lower set of stairs better than the upper set. As I wrote this morning, the idea was to frame and level a box for the first tread, so that all the stringers will be equal.

The problem, as I explained to Casey, is knowing where the stair case will meet the ground. We need the exact height from the ground at the front of the stair to the deck in order to calculate the number of risers. Once we know the number of risers, we know the number of treads is one less. The number of treads dictates where in space the front of the stair is. It's circular. 

My best estimate, from a few days ago, suggested that we need 6R and 5T (unlike the 5R for the upper stairs, and the 5R I had assumed here). Based on that estimate, I drew a careful 1-1/2"=1'-0" section through the stairs. Knowing that the SW corner (lower left in the photo above) would be the lowest point, I decided that the riser at that point would need to be 6.75" like the rest of the stairs. The framing for that first step would taper from there.

Approximate is easy. Any closer to precise is harder than one might think.

I wasn't even sure where that corner would be--extending the line of the west side of the deck (left in the photo) was not as easy as it would be on the drafting table. I came down from the right side, plumb using the level, then measured a distance equal to the width of the stairs as built. My first attempt was crooked because I used just one data point. I thought that a black Sharpie would work, but the concrete needs scrubbing with TSP. 

The edge of the concrete in the photo above is not parallel to the deck, and the rim joist on the right of the photo is part of the prow, so it's angling off in another direction. It's a real world optical illusion, making it very hard to "eyeball" it.

Once I had the tape outline of the first tread, I used a level and a square to calculate the slopes of the bottom of the four boards that would hold up the tread. I cut the long boards first. The bottom of each was cut on a 2.5-degree angle, to accommodate the slope of the concrete. One needed a "shave" to be level--my calculation was off by about 1/4" in 48"--but now they both checked out as level. Trouble is, they were nowhere near level to each other, front to back. I threw out the uphill board and cut it again, because not only was the downhill board level, the western-most corner was the correct height for the 6.75" riser (once a deck board was added).

The sun is setting, but we have a stair tread.

I also worried about that newel post. The typical post has two 1/2" bolts, but the shallow height of the side board would only allow one bolt. (We keep the bolts 2" from the edge of the wood.) Peggy sent me a JLC article on the subject a week ago, and I remembered that it involved a long thru-bolt. My situation isn't like the one in the article, but the long bolt, lots of extra solid blocking, and a bunch of construction screws should make the post pretty sturdy. I haven't installed any of that yet, because I want to make sure the post is plumb in both directions.

In case you're wondering, the newel post has to be in that position relative to the riser board so that it will align with the posts up on the deck. The first small board next to it is just blocking; there will be another block hemming the post in that makes the tread box seem like a simple rectangle. Then there will be two more blocks on the inside in the direction of the bolt tension. The stringers will align with the three little boards to the right in the photo, but the outside (left-most) stringer will align with the blocking that isn't there (so that the stringer's relationship to the posts is maintained).

Next Steps

Update: I don't know about "Next Steps," but I've taken a few Steps in the Right Direction." ToDo list (below) marked up to show progress.

A couple of field changes. First, I'm going to handle the stairs differently than I did on the upper deck. On the upper, I cut the stringers the normal way, which dictates a long, skinny tail where the stairs hit the concrete. I tried to cut each stringer differently to match the slope, and I ended up shimming and adding extra supports.

Instead, I'm going to frame the bottom tread as a 2x6 box and shave the bottom to make the top level. Then the stringers will run from the level deck to the level first tread, and each stringer will be identical. Carpentry 101. Also, I think 4 stringers, creating a 16" spacing, is fine--I went with 5 stringers on the upper deck, and I don't see the added value (and it was more awkward to install the LSCs).

The second change affects the east side. The stairs are on the west, because a tenant should not feel they have access to the whole backyard, necessarily. But where the east side meets the house is less than 30" and if we hold the rail off, we have the option of adding a shortcut path to go from the lower deck to, say, the basement.

Photos like this got me thinking of a path.

The nice thing is, it's optional. If we plant a bush there, it's the same as a railing.

The to do list before we get to the fun deck laying is immense. So, I paused to create this blog post entry instead. :-)

• Draft top of stairs posts--make sure we get the position and connection right
• Clean up the area - deal with scraps, sweep stair area
• Layout bottom tread on concrete; measure using level
• Draw up based on level calculations--decide how to cut 11th stair post
• Cut 2x6 based on drawing
• Assemble the box, test for level, adjust
• Buy a 4x4x8 GC somewhere. Cut in half to fit in car.
• Cut and notch the 10th and the stair post
• Mark 2”, 5-1/4” and drill 1-1/4” countersink on each post
• Apply wood treatment to all the posts
• Mark rim joist for stringers
• Cut first stringer; test for fit, adjust
• Cut the other 3 stringers to match
• Apply wood treatment to the stringers (carefully!)
• Install the LSCs at the rim joist
• Attach the 4 (or 5) stringers to the LSCs and the bottom tread
• Cut and install 2x4 ‘X’-bracing
• Install the last 2 AC4s (@ SW post)
• Mark location of 2 DTT1Zs
• Drill 1-1/4” countersinks, then ½” through rim joist and blocking
• Install DTT1Zs with threaded rods
• Set each post temporarily using post level with clamps and/or screws
• Drill 5/8” at each countersink; install carriage bolts
• Cut and install 2x4 intermediate post
• Cut and install 2x4 sub-rail between posts
• Black stain rim joist all around, ends of house girder, front of the other girders, each post, stringers, and sub-rail
• Paint the first row of siding at the deck
• Cut and apply joist tape to all the joists and blocking and stringers
• Use the solid Fiberon to cut the 6-piece picture frame, notching at each post
• Cut and place the first grooved deck board at the house
• First, verify that the deck board at the top of the stairs will be at least 3” wide. If not, start deck boards at top of stairs and plan to rip the board at the house.
• Place one grooved deck board after another until done

Alastair Knows All the Angles

When you have two boards that meet to form a 90° angle, you can cut each one at 45° to make a miter. Likewise, if the boards form a 45° angle, you cut each at 22.5° and there's your miter. The circular saw has an angle guide that goes up to 45 and has 22.5 specially marked.

So, when the plans call for a 33° and a 21° angle on the "prow," and you're cutting the rim joists on either end, we just split the angle, right? I cut one at 16.5° and the other at 10.5° and I was horribly wrong.

I still don't quite get it. If the prow was 45° on both sides, wouldn't we miter at 22.5°? If not, when do you use 22.5? (Answer: When you're cutting baseboard facets around rounded-corner drywall.)

So, I went back to the drawing board. I simply drafted the 33° corner at large scale. The non-rim joists that hit the prow would be cut at 33°--that much was clear, at least. And that means setting the circular saw to 33°.

But the miter not so much. On my drawing, I confirmed that the angle of the two rim joists was 123° on the inside and 237° on the outside (which makes 360°). So, just split 123 and set the circular saw to 61.5°, right?

First of all, no, because the circular saw only goes to 45. I need a Spinal Tap circular saw. I drew the "perfect" miter on my large scale drawing and I could see that neither board required more than a 45° cut. So, we're looking at the right angle inverse of 61.5, which is 28.5°. Just to be clear: When you're mitering a 33° break like this, just cut both boards at 28.5° and you're good. What the hell?

Furthermore, while that might work, I drew the perfect miter--the line that bisects the intersection of two 1.5" boards at 33°--and the angles were not equal. It measured out at 33° for the straight rim joist and 24° for the angled prow rim joist. They add up to 57°, which is the right angle inverse of...wait for it...33°.

I unscrewed the rim joist and recut the end that had been 16.5° and made it 33°. Then I recut my first attempt at the prow rim joist because I had measured to the cantilevered joist, not the tip of the prow that wasn't there yet. But when I put it together, it worked. Yay for drawings at large scale. Not so much for my conceptual math skills.

Framing as of Monday evening

Sunday Night Status

Wow, another week slipped by. A couple of days lost to rain, paying taxes and working at my day job, and here we are.

I finished the stairs for the upper deck--black stain, joist protection tape and the treads. Mostly figuring out what the lower two treads do at the free end. Gave up on the sweeping curve idea.

We have backyard access once again.

Time to start on the lower deck. That means striking a level line at the house and setting the main girder, then setting two more girders at the exact same level and square with the ends of the first girder. Lots of chin stroking, but we got there.

Girder propped up so we can measure posts

I built the three girders first--they are made of pieces of 2x8, some reclaimed and some new. Once we cut the 4x4 supports to the right height--several had to be cut and trimmed three times--the ends get wood preservative.

The second girder is propped up, but now we have to check height relative to the first girder.

Status as of Sunday night. The cantilevered board is just laying there.

By Sunday night, all three girders are set parallel to each other and at the same height. They rest on 4x4s to piers that are resting on level, relatively undisturbed earth. Two rim joists have been installed and squared (good old Pythagoras) so that we know the secondary girder aligns with the first girder on the east.

The cantilevered joist in the photo above was used for checking level--it's not attached. It is where a similar joist will go, but that depends on the precise angle of the rim joist, which is meant to match the existing concrete steps. The two rim joists that are installed have miter cuts anticipating the two different angles of the "prow."

We musn't forget the third girder, at the top of the stairs

Joist and deck are just resting there, showing how the deck meets the threshold

Can't you just imagine the stairs?

Stair tread design

Help me, Peggy Dallas Architect. You're my only hope!--Paraphrasing Princess Leia.

The basic step configuration

48" wide treads all the way down. Gap under deck...hmm.

Flared design asks the question--how do we support the treads?

Saturday night status

Friday was a good day, deckwise. I more or less wrapped up the Fiberon on the upper deck. All that's left is using the table saw to rip down the board at the house. I'll need to do this for the stair treads, as well, so might as well wait and do it at once.

Missing a few surface-mount screws, but the hidden fasteners are easy.

Saturday, the Fourth of July, I started by cleaning up the jobsite. Sawdust and wood pieces everywhere, not to mention the plywood and other lumber leaning against the house. I did this for one outstanding reason: I was a little frightened of the stair stringer project.

Here's the deal: the existing concrete slopes away from the house in both dimensions. The bottom of the stringer slopes up, not level. The height of the bottom step is different on each of five stringers. I cut the first stringer and used it to layout all five against the deck framing, then to figure out how to cut for the two slopes. I went to install the Simpson connectors and learned that they need 8 specialty nails each into the deck framing. Simpson screws are okay, but they have stubby heads that would interfere with the stringer geometry. Road trip! A box of the special nails was just $5.

Five LSCZs, only the right-most installed flipped

LSCZs are the "good" kind of Simpson, just $2 apiece. But eight 10d nails each into the deck framing. Peace of mind for $10--I love adding the strength of cleverly-designed steel. Also, I used five, not four, stringers because I want these stairs to be heavy-duty. I expect I'll use the more-expensive screws into the side flaps--8 each there, as well.

Turns out I've practically forgotten how to nail. The ones on the ends were hardest.

I was finally ready to cut the other four stringers at 7:15 in the evening. I marked a 2x12 and made the first cut. The saw makes a huge racket, followed by the sound of wood falling on concrete. With that din echoing away, I could hear my neighbors--on four sides!--having outdoor parties. I could almost hear what they were saying. Well, I figured, if I don't cut tonight, I'll cut early Sunday morning, and they won't like that much, either. I made another cut. In the silence that followed, the parties resumed. I couldn't go on. It was time to clean up for the night. Happy Fourth, my non-social-distancing neighbors.

Just placed there--the bottom bends up to meet the wood.

The stringers need Copper Green wood preservative on the cut edges, followed by Valspar black stain.

2x12 x 12' (left) are not easy to carry. Once cut, paper doll-style, into stringers, they're much lighter.

Cable rail options

I'm not an expert, but I have watched a lot of YouTube videos.—This quote from yesterday's post still applies. I have seen a bunch of different ways to approach cable rail.

It's been exactly a month since I wrote about cable rail. Let's consider various aspects.

• What kind of cable and what spacing?
• Continuous cable or three panels?
• How to anchor one end of the cable, and
• How to tension the other end?
• Do I need specialized tools (cutter, crimper)?
• Do I need caps to cover the attachments?

Cable and spacing

Basic 1/8" stainless steel 1x19, 316 marine grade, high corrosion-resistant cable. One YouTuber installed galvanized steel and regretted it--it rusted out in a year. I live within a half-mile of the Puget Sound. Amazon sells Ingpro 7x7 (not 1x19) for around .23¢/foot and BestEquip 1x19 for .24¢/foot (if you buy 500').

Update: I've now seen a video all about the difference between 7x7 and 1x19. 7x7 isn't bad, but it's a bundle of bundles, so it looks more braided. It also reflects less light, unexpectedly, so it doesn't look as shiny. So, 7x7 okay, but 1x19 preferred.

The railing design calls for 8 cables at 3.5" spacing.

I'm pretty sure the cables will go through the two 2x4 center supports, but it's not clear that we have to drill the 4x4s. Muzata sells left and right threaded lag screws that I was sure I didn't want the first time I saw them in a video, but the idea is growing on me. They're just $2.75/pair. Continuous cable: 8 pairs ($22). Three panels: 24 pairs ($66).

Continuous cable or three panels?

We went with two 4x4 posts at the corners, thinking that we would use continuous cables, but we spaced the posts 4" apart so that we don't have to.

Mockup at Dunn Lumber

Wrapping a single cable around would, in theory, add strength to the railings. You could hit the west railing hard enough to make it fail, but the cable would hold it in place.

Using a single cable reduces the anchor and tension fittings needed to one per cable. We would need 4 grommets per cable to protect the 4x4s from wear.

Despite these two positives, I don't like the look--it's like a trussed up turkey ready for roasting.

Depending on the anchor and tension hardware, however, doing three panels might look cool, or it might look really ugly. If we use turnbuckles, for example, now we have three times as many to look at. No doubt, three panels means three anchors and three tensioners per cable.

Another point is that the handrail (and the subrail below it) are continuous. They aren't three panels, so why should the cable be?

Muzata, by the way, sells stainless steel grommets (protector sleeves) for .67¢ each (in packs of 80).

How to anchor one end of the cable

There are various ways to attach the fixed end of the cable, but most involve swaging (SWAY-jing). That's a new word to me, but it just means crimping metal to hold our cable. If we drill through the 4x4 at the anchor end, there is hardware available with which you feed the cable through, crimp it to the hardware, then pull it taut, leaving only the hardware visible on the non-cable side of the post.

Muzata CKE system. $5.75 per cable

The cheaper way to do it is a fitting that screws on the cable side of the post. The Muzata system at the right mounts with exposed stainless steel screws, but the design allows the cable to run at an angle, say in a stair railing. In this system, you jam the cable in at the anchor (top of the photo), then crimp it twice.

Muzata also sells a system of lag screws, one side threaded right and the other side threaded left. You add tension by rotating the cable.

How to tension the other end

Affordable Stair Parts has a system where the swage the anchor to the cable for you, more to come.

You can loop the cable end and crimp a connector on it.

Specialized tools

Crimper and cutter by Muzata: $106. Amazon sells a no-name version in a yellow box for $77.

Muzata has lots of stuff on Amazon.

Caps to cover the attachments

Text here.

It's a start

Wednesday was supposed to be very productive. It wasn't supposed to rain. I kept expecting it to stop, but it dripped on until 11am or so. Then I was added to an hour-long meeting at 2pm that bumped into my regular 3pm, which was followed by a 4pm with a guy in Sydney (it was 9am Thursday for him).

Trying to cut the "picture frame," I was reminded of a wrestler stalking his opponent--you need to know where to grab first and to anticipate how you expect the match to go. Strength isn't most of it, I gather. The hard part is visualizing how you'll get your arms around the problem.

I'm not an expert, but I have watched a lot of YouTube videos.—Seen on a t-shirt on a YouTube video.

The boards are slippery under power tools and you can't mark them with a pencil.

The frame overlaps the 2x structure, so the mitered corners meet in mid-air. Where the deck thrusts out at a 14° angle, the miter is 52°, not 45°. So, you just hold the tape measure at a point in mid-air, right? The bigger problem is notching for the 4x4 posts. I'm an amateur with the jigsaw.

Turns out its an orbital up-cut jigsaw, which means that the blade goes forward and back as it goes up and down and it cuts when the blade goes up, which tends to keep the tool on the wood. You can see my amateurish first cuts. I got better, first by watching a lot of YouTube videos and then by buying a longer, finer-toothed plastic blade. The general-purpose blade that came with the tool wasn't...wait for it...cutting it.

I sacrificed the board shown above and just used it as a template. I didn't get much done for the day, but tomorrow should be better.

Just two more frame boards (the longest two, with 3 notches each) to go.

It's been a week

The lumber and decking arrived a week ago. We'd be farther along if it hadn't rained so much, but we're just about ready to install the Fiberon.

Extra blocking; acrylic joist tape and black stain

The first Fiberon board. Note the Gray Screen paint.

Next step involves cutting the picture frame from solid edge boards. The board shown above needs a 45° miter, but the second edge board needs a 52° miter because of the 14° cant. The third, fourth, and fifth boards need to be cut around the railing posts. Then we'll be ready to install the regular deck boards inside the frame.

Wednesday morning...and its raining. The Weather app shows it stopping by 9am and no more rain for a week; I'll believe it only in hindsight.

Two unrelated things:

• The downspout is actually working, which is great. You can hear it dripping on the weed fabric. But that reminds me, we probably want to use an underground pipe to direct it away from the house, as I did on the other side of the breezeway. Digging for the pipe will mean uninstalling the weed fabric. Et cetera, et cetera.
• The sewage ejector plug was only half-connected, I noticed, and when I plugged it all the way in, a distant hum came from the ground! Until that moment, I had never caught the thing working.

The color will be fine (fingers crossed).