Building a deck isn’t easy—you need to coax the most beauty out of the materials you buy. One key to getting the pro look you want is having the right tool kit. These items may not be all you need to succeed, but they will help you build a stronger and more beautiful deck.
ChopShot: This simple Canadian invention lets you make perfectly square cuts with a hand-held circular saw. It’s a real time saver for deck work because it eliminates the need to haul long pieces of lumber back and forth to a mitre saw. The site-installed wooden handle screws to the ChopShot frame. The first time you cut with this tool, your saw slices off the excess length of this strip. From then on, simply line up the end with your pencil mark, then let the tool guide the saw to complete an accurate cut. No need to mark each board with a square, and no need to follow a cutting line with your eye.
18-volt impact driver: Impact drivers deliver more power for a given voltage than cordless drills. You’ll find that a 14.4-volt model works reasonably well for most deck construction, although 18 volts is even better because it delivers the kind of power you need to drive 4"-long deck screws. An even more important advantage is the way impact drivers keep screwdriver tips engaged with screw heads during use. The back-and-forth rotating action of the tool as it operates under load constantly resets the driver tip, virtually eliminating slippage and rounded-out screw heads.
Level: A water level is a super-accurate, super-simple tool for establishing level reference points while building your deck frame. A garden hose with an 18" length of clear tubing on each end is all you need. Fill the whole thing with water, then place one end on your elevation reference point. The level of water that’s visible in one clear section of tubing is always at exactly the same elevation as the other. For shorter-range levelling jobs, a 48" spirit level (pictured left) is perfect.
Fubar: There’s no point in getting upset about twisted deck lumber. It’s a fact of life. The best thing you can do is learn to deal with it, and this tool helps in at least one specific way. Although designed as a general-purpose wrecking tool, Stanley’s Fubar includes a serrated opening on one end that’s sized to fit over the edge of a twisted joist or other vertically-oriented framing member. Slip the tool in place, lever the corkscrewed joist one way or the other until it’s straight, then lock the lumber in place with deck screws or framing nails.
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