new deck for trailer; just use pressure treated wood?

Shannon

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2005
Location
Wake County, NC
Was hauling some furniture last week and my big butt crashed through the deck. Of course then I had to start poking around and found lots of rot spots. I need to haul a van to St. Louis this weekend, so have to redo the deck asap.

Just use pressure treated wood? Right now it is screwed down all over the place, I assume that I don't need to put those 200 screws back in since the boards are held in by the welded on flat stock.

Also, currently has 14, 20ft, 2x6s on there now. I'm thinking about putting 2x12s on there instead; any issues with that? In looking at wood at HD the other day, finding 20ft straight boards is going to be a challenge. Can I do 2 10 footers instead?

Thanks for your advice,
Shannon
 
Yeah, you can just pressure treated wood. That will work fine.

You can also use redwood or rough cut sawmill wood. Both will last quite a while. Just depends on how much you want to spend.

I'd put the screws back in. They will keep the boards from warping and rattling.

Go back with 2x6 or 2x8. I'd stay away from the 2x12 (personal experience). They tend to be more expensive, especially in 20' length. The edges will curl up and collect water after time. The smaller boards don't curl up/warp as bad once screwed down.

Yeah, you can use 2 10 footers. I'd stagger the boards, similar to a hard wood floor (personal preference). lay the first 10 foot board in the middle with 5' on each end left. Use 2 small 5' pieces at the ends. Then use 2 10 foot pieces, and so on and so forth. This only works if your floor supports will work out with the seams on the boards. This method creates more seams and more work, but loooks nice when finished. If at all possible, just use 20' pieces. Some small warping from the store is ok, that can be fixed when the board is screwed down (use a pry bar to pry it straight and screw it down).

Rob
 
I run into a similar dilemma when I decked mine. I just wrote down how many 2X6's or 2X8's, or 2X10's, or 2X12's it would take to do the job. Went and found out the cost of the total, and it worked out that 2X10's were the most economical. Mine was 16 feet, with an additional 2 foot dove tail. I used pressure treated, so far, no issues. I put two carriage bolts on each end, and one in the middle of each board. No problems from boards slapping and so on. Use Nylock nuts so they don't back off. I didn't, and have had to replace several. If you notice when you cut the boards there isn't much penetration of the treatment. There is a product, I call "green death" not sure of the actual name. It's a chemical that penetrates well, and keeps it from rotting. I used it on the ends and over the deck. Would have been better to use it on the boards before I installed them. There are two kinda of the stuff, one is water based, the other is oil based, I prefer the oil base. Oh, and I used 3/6X16 thread count carriage bolts.
Hope this helps
 
Mine has a 15 year old rough cut oak deck. Its starting to get ragged now but, all I ever did was fit the deck, then removed the boards and sprayed them with a 50-50 kero~used motor oil mix and let it soak in for a few days. Installed the deck and sprayed the topside again. That sucker beaded water for 10 years. :lol:
 
If price is the issue check with a local sawmill. They will often have rough cut "seconds" where a gate may have been off...If you catch them before they rip them down you can get a steal.

When we built my BIL car hauler the local uy had a stack of 2"x11" he sold us enough to do the whole deck for $45...
 
Ratman said:
Mine has a 15 year old rough cut oak deck. Its starting to get ragged now but, all I ever did was fit the deck, then removed the boards and sprayed them with a 50-50 kero~used motor oil mix and let it soak in for a few days. Installed the deck and sprayed the topside again. That sucker beaded water for 10 years. :lol:
Click to expand...

Poor mans creosote, have seen it used, works well, very stinky and flammable though.
 
Thanks for the replys. Off to the lumber yard tomorrow. Going to go with Rob's suggestion of keeping the 20fters. Typo in first post, it's 14 2x8s...

Shannon
 
I would use screws to attach the boards at about every other floor support. I've done the lag bolts and the screws and I've found the screws to be much better and easier. Plus they are faster and don't come loose. These are the same ones that Tractor trailers use on their trailers.

If you don't mind warping, just put them at each end and one in the middle. Don't like warping (I hate it), put them on each floor support or at least every other support. I use 2 screws per board, per floor support. Usually amounts to over 200 screws for a car hauler. I use the self tappers from Fastenal. They are much stronger and are hgher quality and cheaper than the ones at Lowes or HD.

Rob
 
Deck tear down, day 1...

In preparation, I headed over to home depot yesterday with the trailer to pick up the wood, screws, new grinder, etc. Got a killer deal on a new Ryobi grinder. Opened box for $25. For 2.95, full 3 year replacement warranty. Wood, wanted pressure treated decking in 20ft length. No dice. Tried every lumber yard I could find in the book. 16 ft was the longest. So decided to get 10 footers and just split them that way. Pain in the butt, but couldn't think of anything else. So I was getting them from the lumber yard after dark last night. Bubba pulled them off and stuck them on the forklift. Couldn't see a thing, so I just counted. He was 4 boards short, so he brought back 4 more, but they were different size. I purchased 2x8s and then noticed that he put 2x10s on the trailer. He said, I'm going home, so just keep them.

This morning, got out and started taking all the screws out. There are 6 rows of 2 screws per board, 14 boards, all torx heads, rusted, and heads full of crap. So cordless drill wouldn't even move them. Started doing it by hand. After about 4 of them, went out to get the impact wrench. Then couldn't find a 1/2" to 3/8" drive adapter. Back to HD to get the adapter, don't have it, go to Stephen's hardware, don't have it, found one at the little Sear's outlet. Back home with the adapter, plugged it in to the impact and hooked up the air, nothing, impact barely spinning without a load. Oil, need oil....impact starts spinning, but no torque. What the crap...So head next door to the neighbors and borrow his impact. Still not getting it done. Must not be enough air, so hook up hose to neighbors big 100 gallon 10 hp compressor, finally got some movement. Still won't break them lose, gotta do that by hand with the breaker bar, but will run all those screws out.

Broke off about half of the screws. Had to cut the flat stock over the ends. Torx head socket breaks. Back to HD to swap. Girl charges me for a new one and again for the broken one.! Hey, just bought that last night and already paid for it and it says 'Guaranteed forever, so no charge.' 'Ain't never heard of that, I gotta call the manager...' so 20 min later, I get my replacement torx head and bought an extra one just so I don't have to go back to HD.

Finally get all the screws out and the rotten boards off. Had to break off about 50 screws and then grind down the remnants. With the boards off, I decided to inspect all the wiring and such while it was accessible. Found a ground that was broke for the running lights and fixed that. Wrapped a couple of spots with some electrical tape that looked like they needed it. Then I remembered I had purchased a couple of amber clearance lights to stick on the fenders so I could see the trailer at night. With all the lights recessed, and it being all black, you can't really see the trailer at night. So I dug out those two lights I bought like 4 years ago, drilled the holes into the fender and tapped into the wiring harness and wired them up finally. Drilled holes along one of the cross braces and zip tied the wire from the other side up and out of the way. Nice and bright now and I can see both fenders. Finally, something goes right.

Get all the boards off and you can see how they save money in making these trailers, not an once of paint underneath, only where you can see. Throw a couple of boards up for test fit. Because of using 2 ten footers, the seam didn't line up on the cross brace. So out to the shop to get some angle iron. None...back to HD, none. Over to Stephen's have some 2 inch by 4 ft only. Will have to do, back home. Figure out I can but weld the angle to one of the cross braces and make it work. Get ready to pull the trailer back to the shop and realize there is no way I can pull the truck and trailer back there without sinking it in the very wet yard. With all the rain yesterday and it was a river back there. So I pull the welder up to the driveway and have to wire in the right 220 plug in the garage to get juice for the welder. OK, got it covered now. Crap, no shield. Borrow my neighbors 1950s shield that is so dark you cannot even see the weld hardly. Weld in straight lines but 1/4 inch off the seam. Geez, I'm a moron, can't even weld today. Grind, weld, grind, weld, grind, weld, this is ridiculous. Finally get it done. Aimee yells out, leaving in 10 min!! Oh yeah, supposed to go out to dinner with another family to get some Greek food (was great food BTW, never really had Greek food before).

So hurry up and put all the tools in the garage, haul the welder back to the shop, pile all the rotten wood on the little trailer to haul to the dump, shower, shave, only 2 min late. Pick up some rattlecan rustoleum after dinner. Figure I should at least try to slow down the rust underneath a bit, so I'm going to get the girls to help me rattle can underneath.

Now that the hard part is done, I just need to trip about 2 inches off one of the 10 footers and I'll be set. I also picked up some 1inch angle iron. I'm going to leave a big enough gap between the wood and turn the 1 inch angle down along the edge on the top to help keep them down in the middle of the trailer.

So plan is to get the wood on and screwed down in the morning, load up the van, and take off for St. Louis. Maybe we can make it down to Asheville/Knoxville area and knock off a chunk of the trip and finish on Monday. Just ran out of time.

Man, I am beat. I always do stuff the hard way.....

Hope ya'll's projects went better than mine today!
Shannon
 
When I redecked my trailer I hitched it to the truck, ran it over to Mike's Welding (he builds trailers) dropped it off, called him a couple of days later, went back, hitched it up, wrote him a check and brought it home :rolleyes: all done! :lol:
 
Shannon, I could almost write the same write up about things going wrong on many of my projects!
Glad you made headway.
 
Sounds like my job! I can't tell you how many days I've had just like that. GRRRRRR! Hope the rest of it goes better!
 
Yepp

Sounds about right....Murphy's Law...What can go wrong, will go wrong!! :shaking:

Patience my son....if you get too frustrated :confused: , turn out the lights and hit it fresh another day!!

That's when accidnetrs happen too...trust me..

:popcorn: Hang in thar' !!:beer:
 
Got the deck on in just a couple of hours. Had to cut about 1.5 inches off half the boards to get them to lay down. With the 2x10s, I had to rip a 5.5 inch piece for the center. I did it free hand with the skill saw, just got it in there for the trip to St. Louis. I will rip a permanent piece on the table saw when I get home.

I got one row of self tapping screws, 2 per board, in before the both batteries died and we had to go. Had to borrow the neighbors 18v drill, cause my 12v wouldn't self tap through the angle iron.

Looks really good. I still need to weld in the small angle over the seam in the middle to hold it down.

I also spent a few min with two rattle cans of rustoleum on the top rails and front before putting the boards on.

Thanks for the advice and encouragement.

Happy Thanksgiving,
Shannon
 
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