WELCOME

I've been on blogger for a number of years with a blog related to one of my hobbies, model railroading. This blog will follow my professional life as a builder and renovator.  It is intended to showcase some of the work I do, but also talk about tools, techniques, and other carpentry and woodworking errata.  I'm going to try to update on a regular basis.

My son, and future partner, installing mahogany planks on a deck we built in Haddonfield, NJ as part of a larger interior and exterior renovation project.  He is using EB-TY hidden fasteners to secure the boards.   This system is not cheap, but the deck will look great with no visible fasteners.  EB-TYs are manufactured by Simpson.  They are basically a plastic biscuit with a stainless steel screw to secure them to the deck framing.  Slots are needed in the edges of the boards.  You can buy mahogany or composite decking pre-grooved, however, in this case, the grooves at the ends of the boards would be visible as we are overhanging the boards (to match other existing decking on house), so we are cutting the slots ourselves with a Freud biscuit jointer.  With decking we always overhang our boards during installation and cut ends later, in one continuous cut.  This is much easier than cutting each board individually and the final look of the edge is much nicer and straighter.