# Outdoor deck and planing boards, a lot of them



## ChiknNutz (Apr 22, 2011)

I am in the research phase of determining which way to go for replacing the deck boards on our deck. It is a big deck, 1120 sq ft. I have looked into hardwoods like Ipe and Tigerwood as well as the usual Cedar (at least that is typical for around these parts). While I would love to go with an exotic for several reasons, such longevity as well as lower maintenance beyond the cool factor, but the cost is quite significant. I do not like composites at all. Anyway, back to the original reason for the thread. I am considering buying rough cut cedar from a place I've bought a lot from over the years and as you can imagine, the price per LF is much better. However, I would need to plane all these down, either 2700 LF of 2x6 or 4200 LF of 2x4 depending on which I go with. All I have is a Ridgid "lunchbox style" planer and am wondering if this task is simply asking too much of it. Plus, I would want to radius the edges of each board as well. My other option of course is to find someone nearby with a more appropriately sized planer/moulder. Opinions welcome. Thanks much.

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## ChiknNutz (Apr 22, 2011)

Another option is to spend the "savings" on properly sized moulder/planer of my own, hence justifying the expense :laughing:


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

It might take a while but you can surface the wood with a small planer. I did a deck a couple of years ago that was 500 sq. ft. where a helper and I removed pressure treated pine decking, pulled the nails and surfaced the wood in a day. Since the wood was pretty dirty I went through two sets of knives but got the job done.


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## ryan50hrl (Jun 30, 2012)

Cedar is pretty darn easy to plane.....a small planer shouldn't have much trouble with it at all....


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## ryan50hrl (Jun 30, 2012)

I would note however......that you'd also probably want to use a shaper or router table to round the edges over after planing so you don't have a square 90 degree sharp edge....


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## Civilian (Jul 6, 2013)

ryan50hrl said:


> I would note however......that you'd also probably want to use a shaper or router table to round the edges over after planing so you don't have a square 90 degree sharp edge....


How about just a orbital sander to break the edge. With cedar, that would not be hard. Do you have a significant other or a youngin' that wants to help?

Jon
Northern Michigan


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

I've never tried it but wouldn't cedar be too soft for a deck?


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## ryan50hrl (Jun 30, 2012)

Well just some basic figures since we don't have dimensions. 40x27.5 would get roughly his 1100 square feet. Figure a 6 inch wide board, that's 4400 linear feet of edges to deal with....I don't think you'd want to use a hand sander to deal with edges.


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## Al B Thayer (Dec 10, 2011)

Steve Neul said:


> I've never tried it but wouldn't cedar be too soft for a deck?


That's the best wood for the job unless you use epi.

Al

Nails only hold themselves.


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## ChiknNutz (Apr 22, 2011)

Cedar is fairly soft but is very common for decks, at least here in the Pacific Northwest. Redwood is also pretty common but more so in California. I would prefer to use Ipe (aka ironwood) but it is about 4x the cost of cedar.

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## Manuka Jock (Jun 27, 2011)

ChiknNutz said:


> Another option is to spend the "savings" on properly sized moulder/planer of my own, hence justifying the expense :laughing:


Go with that one :yes:
and come out on top


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## captainawesome (Jun 21, 2012)

I think your planer will be fine. I will be crossing this bridge in the not so distant future and I have been planning on using the same method Steve mentioned. I'll pull up the pressure treated pine, send through my Delta lunchbox planer, and reinstall. 

As for the edges, I would just set up your router in a makeshift table (a piece of 3/4" ply) with a 2x4 fence set even with the bearing. It might be worth sourcing a second router to use while the other cools off.


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