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it's got bran here and today's exciting episode we're gonna talk about dicks because of this
quarantine period I've looked at a lot of old footage and we build a lot of dicks so today
is exciting episode is 9 tips that will help you build a perfect dick first tip involves materials
and stainless steel screws see when I first started building and for the first few years
as a builder I would nail the [ __ ] down I would use nails that had an angular groove kind of like
a verse so the problem with nailing the dick is that it doesn't hold the [ __ ] borders down over
time the timber shrinks and expands and eventually the nail gets pushed up on a lot of old dicks you
probably notice that when you're walking around on it you can feel the head of the nails below
your feet and that's it's sticking up because it has no has no resistance that little groove
on the side of the now isn't enough resistance to keep it in the timber and that's why screws
are better so the thread on the top is for the [ __ ] and the three of the bottom is for the dick
framing the reason I have so many of these types of screws because that's what we use mostly this
stainless steel that's the other thing I recommend stainless steel it costs a little bit more but
you're not gonna get that bleeding out rusting that a lot of screws get we usually use quite
nice hardwood [ __ ] I'll talk a bit more about that in a minute you know it's quite nice to look
at so I like to use a subtle screw with a small head to take the attention away from the fixings
now speaking of screws there is a screwing tip to do it quick and Pato taught me this one one
into the chalk there then the other end now we line up the board with our chalk line and that
chalk line is parallel to this line of [ __ ] you know that we've got two parallel points we
chuckle the boards in between and we get wedges open up to get and even the now it's pretty good
yeah that's how you get it all straight without taking forever so having those boards the way
we did in the video they're in fixed rate positions means you don't have to focus so
much on the middle ones you can focus more on getting the screws straight and it's kind of
fun as well and the third and final tip related to screws is markup it's alone but don't forget
to rub the pencil a now I think a telltale sign of a average dick is wonky fixings so I like to
get a straight edge out and Mark the framing from one into another and draw a little pencil
marks all the way along the pencil line also lets you mark the distance from the edge of the boards
and so you get consistent spaced screws oh yeah and don't forget my dad's golden [ __ ] advice
which is no pencil marks keep a eraser or sandpaper with you and rub those suckers out
if you want your deck to stand out if you want it to look beautiful build a hardwood deck in recent
years I have heard more debate around soft woods and hardwoods and which is better I think hard
wood is more durable it's gonna take a knock a lot better than a softwood wood it's more resistant to
decay it has natural tannins and oils in it that um that pine for example doesn't pay and relies a
lot on the treatment that's pumped into it also the hardwood that I use has a lot less knots in
it and knots can really weaken [ __ ] a lot of cracks start from knots yeah hardwood has a lot
of benefits personally it's also nicer to work with but that doesn't mean you should never use
pine the difference between pine and hardwood here and price is quite a lot so if you're building
like an axis way or just some sort of [ __ ] that gets you from A to B maybe it's an entrance
to a back door then I would probably go with pine because it's low cost and easy to come by
before we go on here is a bit of a warning about hardwood in particular Aquila and vitex here in
New Zealand so whenever I'm installing vitex I end up with like black marks all over my palms
that is the tannins leaching out of the timber usually when it gets wet so that happens for
up to six months after the decks been in store but after it's bleached out it's usually good
now the reason that is a problem is if you have other things around your dick we did
this concrete path for a client and they asked if we could install a queerer face on each step
we're going to put a little cui ler facing on here to finish it off and once that's on then
these stones will come around here as well but we don't wanna put that on because Quiller has
oil in the oil leaks so there are the facings there and they are gonna remain there until all
the oil has withered out of them at which point we were then unscrew them and screw them there
it took a few months but the tannins eventually leached out and then once they were gone we
installed the facing on there and the puff looks beautiful so yeah watch out for hardwood bleeding
if they're [ __ ] you do happen to choose you want to stain it or seal it with something but
if you decide to start staining a dick you just got to know that you're gonna be doing it quite
often some people say two times a year I usually recommend reapplying the stain once a year I'm a
fan of like clear varnishes and stains rather than colored ones the colored ones are hard to maintain
an even color over time as the dick wears in different degrees so a clear stain would probably
be the way to go also here's a little detail I like to do when installing the [ __ ] so we like
to put a bit of oil on the end we would cut it it helps seal the in grain so it doesn't soak up too
much moisture and eventually crack so if you seal it when you're installing it you prolong the life
of the dig just a little bit what I do is I run this along the cut end of my Deacon board now
what that does is it rounds it off the same way that the edge is rounded off when you buy it so it
feels like a professional factory cut all the way around I highly recommend doing there it's another
way to give it their professional look tip number eight is the underrated tip I think people don't
consider what is underneath their dick if you're going to close in the sides for example use some
timber use [ __ ] but maybe leave a bigger gap than you would on the flat surface of the deer
this allows the underneath of [ __ ] to ventilate and get some airflow in there and that will lead
to a longer life for the timber also the ground beneath the deck should have some sort of weed mat
at the very least the amount of times I've pulled up decking and seen a forest beneath the but if
the decking boards there's a forest growing under here just like a native for us to it's amazing how
much light can actually get through those digging boards so a bit of weed mat sometimes you can put
polythene down if you want to another thing to consider would be drainage where's all the water
going yeah think about what's underneath the deck think about how ear and water is going to
behave once it's gone between the digging boards and tip number nine is find a way
to hide the ingrain this is another way to show that the Dickens had a bit of effort put into it
over time if you look at the end of a decking board that's where the moisture goes in there's
where the cracking starts it doesn't look that good I either like to use a fascia which is a
board on the edge of the decking in the vertical position I like the dick and go into that or I
like to do a picture frame around the perimeter the thing to consider with a picture frame finish
is it requires a lot more framing because we're doing a picture frame we have to add add all these
blocks in here yeah pretty much the end of the boards see ya 9 tips to build a beautiful deck
obviously there's a lot more those were just ones that I think of a lot and things that I've learned
over the years so yeah I hope that was useful to somebody out there I hope the video didn't
come too late maybe you're already 6 weeks into quarantine and you're halfway through your dick
realizing how many mistakes you've made after watching my video I hope that isn't the case
some other things to consider when you're planning the deck would be size and position here in New
Zealand people usually think just build it big build the biggest dick I can possibly afford but
that isn't always the best approach I think because you've got to restain it once a year
you've got a you realize after you've built it and you've put your [ __ ] chairs out there that
actually a breeze comes through every afternoon so maybe think about where the windows think about if
you could do a wind barrier what kind of furniture you want sometimes a roof is a good idea as well
there's so many things you can do with the dip maybe watch some of my other videos that I'll
pop up at the end of this one where I get a bit more in depth about the building of it and yeah
have you got any questions comment below and I'll be sure to keep it in mind when we inevitably
build another dig thanks for watching catch you guys in the next exciting episode and choose