Screwing the Decking

     The decking has been nearly half screwed in now, looking good...

     It is so lovely to finally have somewhere on this 17 acres that I can comfortably walk barefoot - pure bliss!

     I was given a demo on how to screw in the screws, a bit more tricky than it may seem at first. The screw has to screw through the wood first, and then through the metal underneath.

     The hole in the wood is a little oversized due to the wings on the bottom part of the screw, so it is a little difficult to stop it from wiggling around sideways. And as the screws are heavily galvanised to protect from rust, they are not very sharp for cutting through wood. This means that it generates a lot of heat as it spins around quickly while very slowly moving downward, so some lovely wood smoke comes out of the hole and the sawdust comes out looking a bit black and singed. (Don't worry, it is not a bushfire hazard.)

     When the screw finally hits the metal it suddenly screws downwards very quickly. The wrists get a bit sore as it requires a fair bit of downward pressure, unfortunately the screw cannot be relied on to do the work for us.
     After doing a couple of rows I thought my screw lines looked a bit wiggly, as there were being lined up by sight from a plank layed down beside them. I fetched the chalk line from the shed and had a go at using that instead.

     It is a very pretty blue line, so that was nice, but not sure if it made much of a difference to my straight screwing! The screws always do a little dance at the start and end up a fraction of a millimetre all over the place. After only 2 hours of screwing the cordless drill battery was completely flat, and the wrists were a bit sore. The generator has blown up so we are without electricity for recharging batteries at the moment. Next step is to cut the rest of the merbau to length.

    * Oh and I forgot to mention in the last update - also the 3rd post of the verandah had been erected! Did anyone notice it in the photos?