I have been working on the decks all week. I started on Tuesday and worked all day Thursday and Friday. With afternoon/evening sessions at Wilson of course! It has been a bit of a draggy week though. No big sessions or anything. Kind of a bummer, more of the same as the outdoor season dies down. I keep missing the morning sessions so my buddies are no where to be seen!!
The decks were pretty straight forward. I did have to cut them down a bit. I stretched out the flat bottom to a true 16' but I had assembled them before I made that decision. The north deck is screwed into the 6 x 6" posts that are part of the barn frame. I made a joist hanger out of 2 x 6" and have the back rail laying on that. The rest of the frame is supported by vertical posts. The decks are made out of 2 x 6s that I had laying around. Mostly scrap wood or old wood but it is sturdy.
The south deck was a little tricky. I had to hang it up with tie downs and slowly swing it into space. It was too heavy to prop up and with only one body and two hands I couldn't do it all at once. So the beam and roll up door rails came in handy. I am glad that I didn't cut them out just yet!!
I used these 3" x 7" rough cut cherry beams for the vertical supports. My father got them from somewhere 30 years ago. We had a bunch more but one of his work buddies bought them off of him years ago. The shit my dad used to have, he either gives it away, lets it rot or burns it. Strange!
SO after I got all that together, I realized I had one sturdy but ugly ass deck! The old posts are gnarly as hell, even warped and bowed out. They must be 100 years old!! But they are so strong still! I think I am gonna cover them up because I used brandy new wood for everything else and the frame looks sooooo sweet. It is solid though so no worries people!
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