Get a Dead-Flush Deck Edge: Run the Joists Wild, Snap a Line, Cut

The Problem

On a flush-beam deck, every joist end has to be individually flush before the band board ties in — and the creator's cautionary case was a concrete house whose hidden retaining wall carried a quarter-inch buckle that threw the outer band off for eight or nine feet. Chasing that flush line joist by joist is exactly the work a drop beam makes unnecessary.

The Technique

1. Set the ledger, set the posts, install the drop beam.
2. Set the joists and just lay them across the drop beam running long — no length cuts yet.
3. When every joist is in, go to each end of the deck and snap a chalk line across the joist tops at the overall deck length.
4. Cut each joist down the snapped line with a circular saw.

The band board then meets a row of ends that are on one dead-straight line — no bows, no creep, regardless of what any individual joist did.