New Deck #4: Day 5 and Day 6 of the deck build.

Well Day 5 of the deck build had me starting on the Light poles. I made a wooden tube that was about 5 3/4” on each side.

Three sides are glued together and the forth side will be attached with stainless trim screws, which have a smaller head. They have square drive.

The posts are 8’ long and are 83” above the deck to the top of the wooden post. In the uphill side the post is about 12” in the ground. One the downhill side the post is on top of the ground, but a solid post is inside the hollow one and is sunk into the ground to give it a little more support.

The problem that I ran into was a short sighted item on my part. I made the post and I attached it to the deck. When I went to put the light fixture on top of the post, I realized that I failed to put the 45 deg cut on each corner. So it was a chisel and a tap of the hand palm to cut off the corners. It was about 2 hours of work to do that job.

My youngest son was in a play at school so the day ended early. Post attached but the fixture was not yet in place. So it was back to finishing it today.

Day 6. So here is the fixture and the lamp globe.

I guess a little story is due at this time to tell about the fixtures.

When I lived in St. Louis I met a gentleman that had about 50 of these fixtures. They were take downs from the streets of St. Louis. He wanted about $10.00 for each of them. I bought 2. The city was replacing the fixtures that were installed in 1923 with some of the new Hi Pressure Sodium lights. Some how I never installed them at my home in St. Louis. So them sat in the boxes in the basement. I them moved to New Jersey. Lived there for 25 years. For some reason I never installed them at my home in Ringoes. I then moved to Delaware. My wife wanted a new deck and she was looking at metal light poles. I’m a LumberJock, I don’t like metal poles. Then I remembered the St Louis light fixtures, sitting in the boxes in our garage. I suggest to my wife about using those lights. She was enthusiast about it. Of course it was my job to get them installed.

So when i started on the second pole. I remembered to do the beveling while on the ground. So I took the pole to the workshop and did the beveling while being held in the vise.

And then testing the fixture while still in the vise.

It seems to me that these fixtures are cast bronze.

I had some bulb fixtures that fit in the holders. They seem to have disappeared. But not a problem because they were made for the big base bulb, and I planned to use compact florescent bulbs.

So I made a metal bracket from a hurricane strap from the building supply.

I then screwed a socket on top of my homemade bracket.

The bracket was screwed to the holder.

So here is the first post with the lamp shade all washed and the fixture all washed, The light is really on but it doesn’t show.

So I hurried to get the second post installed and all hooked up. My wife is sitting on her deck looking at her lights. We sat at the table and ate dinner tonight.

And from the yard, looking back at the deck.

So my wife got busy and cleaned all of the tools off. Plus they are forecasting rain tonight.
The supervisor checking out the crack that are forming between the boards.

The deck with the curved edge visable.

On to day seven.

-- Karson retired in DE e-mail karson_morrison@bigfoot.com