Curved Deck

greggmig

Hi everyone just joined today. I have a curved deck to bid on,its on a high end home on a lake.The 12x18 deck will be 8 feet off the ground. the radious will be 9 feet or 18 feet across. the deck will come out 4 feet then the 18 foot diameter curve. Im going to use architectual tapered colums for posts. My question is can I get or make a curved beam, I want the joists to hang out about a foot over the beam to give it a stepped look. I can rapp the rim joist with azec so thats not much of a problem,and as far as the curved railings go a company called Advanced TrimWright can make them out of pvc,all I need to do is give them the specs on the size. This whole job has to look like funiture when done.
Gregg

neolitic

Easier to just set your beams up
as chords and cantilever the joist.
Curve the fascia.

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greggmig

neolitic what do you mean by chords?

neolitic

Straight lines inside a circle or arc,
which are perpendicular to the radius.
A circle divided into eight chords
is an octagon,five is a pentagon, etc.
Try drawing three chords inside your
arc for a starter.
(I guess this thing is a half circle?)

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greggmig

I understand what your saying but I want the cantilever joists to macth the arc on the beam?

Easier to jus set your beams up
as chords and cantilever the joist.
Curve the fascia.

BuiltByMAC

Once you get into curving a beam, you'll need a lot of posts to support it - more than a straight beam.

Something like this would work with only 4 posts...

Mac

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neolitic

Regular straight beams set up as chords.
Cantilever the joist and cut the ends
to form your arc.
Add blocking and form the fascia board
to make the actual arc.
There are a couple of recent threads
on the subject with photos.
Search Mac's posts and I think you'll find
what I'm talking about.

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neolitic

Way to go Mac!

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Bone Saw

with a 9' rad, your cantilevered beam would have to be no tighter than an
8'3" +/- rad to not have your outer most joists cantilevered beyond 2', for an overall rim to beam offset of 7" +/-
I can assure you it will bea a biotch to make a built up beam to that radius, much less install it, and it will have to have a asthetically disproportionate numbber of posts to properly suport it. consider a steel beam or 3 or more chords

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redwood

Curved beams are certainly dooable. Whether you could get the permit office to sign off on them is questionable.

You just need a larger version of this.

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neolitic

Ummm, and capable of being load bearing.
Anything is possible you just
need to throw a lot more money
at some things though.

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BuiltByMAC

Didja catch the radius on that thing? He's looking for a curved beam w/ a radius of about 8'! That's tight - and not in the "cool, awesome" sense!

Your pergola is tight (yes, in the cool, awesome sense!) but I'm thinking it even has a much wider radius than 8'...

The only curved beams I've ever seen are on Bonesaw's projects...and they're a much wider radius.

Mac

redwood

Now you have to use your imagination on this one. I think that all of these had radius's close to what he is looking for, just not in the right orientation.

It's a lot of work and I would vouch for their strength, but will the city.

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mdshunk

Buy your lumber at Lowe's. They come pre-curved, whether you want it that way or not.

BuiltByMAC

Damn, you do nice work!

The real question is, after turning them to lay on their side, would you still vouch for their strength?
And what spacing would you have the posts?


Not harpin' on ya, just wanting clarification! Gravity would affect a horizontal curve much differently than a vertical curve.

Mac

neolitic

Don't misunderstand Redwood, that's
gorgeous stuff.
Real craftsmanship of the first order.
But I wouldn't want to vouch for
a curved beam that I built when someone
loads it up with some insane number of
drunken dancing people.
I can only imagine what it would look
like, and how much it would cost,
if an engineer designed it.

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redwood

Mac, when I make structural curved materials, I use Rescorcinal (sp?), a 2 part epoxy. I will vouch for it's strength.

Post spacing would be determined by the height of the beam, just like any other beam.

The trick is to create a full scale form to bend the laminations to. It's a lot of work, but it can be done.

PS, you need a **** load of clamps.

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neolitic

Then again, you wouldn't be
on here asking how either.

Funny thing, yesterday a customer
was telling me her son, the doctor,
just move to Los Gatos.

First job I did for them, "Doc" was
in the 4th grade.

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Bone Saw

f@#king a, real nice

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redwood

Neo, make sure that you pass my name on to that doctor

Los Gatos is a upscale town that mostly consists of Lawyers, a few doctors and a few hi tech people.

I don't actually live in town, I'm one of the mountain folk that just use LG as a mailing address.

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