Trying to get a square cut on the top of a fence post or deck post can be a difficult job. Rick sent us in his jig that does the job nicely. He nails two pieces of plywood together at 90 degrees and then puts small guide rails on the sides. He then takes his circular saw and cuts the jig off, ...
Donna lives in Georgian Bay, Ontario but has to share her deck with hornets that are attracted to the pine sap oozing out of her deck. What to do?Pine sap will not stop oozing until it has all crystallized inside the wood. This process can be accelerated with heat, but even kiln dried and aged b...
Wayne from Halifax, NS writes: Is there any problem painting or staining new projects that are built with pressure treated wood?My reason for this question is....I was always told to wait at least one year before painting. You had a Canadian Wood Council representative on your show approximatel...
Kelly wants to know if it is possible to paint over something that already has stain on it.The answer is YES, but only if the stain is ready! What do I mean by that?Most stain has water repellents built into it. Look at the first photo and you can see how the water is beading up, rather than so...
We think of anything covered with fibreglass as being almost invincible, yet whether it is a fibreglass boat or a deck, this mixture of glass fibres and epoxy resins has one unrelenting enemy: UV rays from the sun.In the photo you see what a fibreglass skin looks like when put over wood, in a ma...
Having trouble getting leaves out from between the boards of your deck? One viewer suggests putting a screw hook on the end of a broom handle and simply fishing them out. If your boards are too close together, tape the end of a clothes hanger onto the handle. It is not as strong, but it is thi...
Sealants, caulking and other confusing vocabularyThere are all kinds of "sealants" used in construction.What we normally call a "caulking" is properly called a sealant -- a thick material that cures to a flexible solid designed to "seal" the space between two materials -- particularly two materia...
One of the cardinal rules of painting or staining in order to avoid lap marks is to apply material wet-on-wet. On an interior wall that is done by rolling small enough sections that allow you to overlap the edge with the next section before the first one manages to dry. Painting wet-on-wet does...
Most of you are aware that metal connectors are often used to hold things together in a house, much more than in the good old days. The most common one that most people can see in relatively new basements, even decks, is the joist hanger you see in the second photo. Rather than having to sit th...
If a 6x6 or 4x4 wants to twist, it will do so and you can do little to stop it. However you can decide which end will twist!Buried pillarsIf you bury the 6x6 into a concrete pillar, the bottom will be fixed and the top will move, perhaps before you get around to locking in the rest of the deck f...
