Deck Board Gaskets
Spined gaskets compressed between grooved deck boards that turn an upper deck surface into a waterproof roof for the space below.
Get Every Deck Board End Dead Flush With a Router and a Straightedge
Lay the decking long, then trim all the ends in one pass: clamp a straight scrap of OSB as the fence and run a flush-trim router bit whose top bearing rides the straightedge. Boards that came off the pile up to a quarter inch different in length end up perfectly even.
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The Problem
Deck boards don't come out of the bundle at identical lengths — the creator's stock varied by up to a quarter inch — and cutting each one exact before laying it means measuring every board against a frame that may itself not be perfect. Against a picture-frame border, every length error shows as a gap.
The Technique
- Lay the decking with the field boards running long — no length cuts yet.
- Fasten a straight piece of scrap (OSB works) across the boards as a straightedge, set so the trim line lands where the field meets the picture-frame border.
- Chuck a flush-trim bit with a top bearing in the router. The bearing rides the OSB straightedge while the cutter takes off the overhanging lips below, one pass down the line.
- Finish the spots the router can't reach with an oscillating tool: the last few inches at the border corner — crowding the router there risks nicking the picture-frame board — and the run against the house. Both land where they won't be seen.
Pro tip: This inverts the usual
order — instead of making every board perfect and hoping the row ends
straight, you make the row and then make it straight in one operation. The
same lay-long-trim-once approach works anywhere a run of ends has to read
as a single line.
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