Eb-Ty “Live Cylinder” deck fasteners?
Hi all:
I’m considering laying down ~400 s.f. of Ipe for a covered porch/deck on the north side of my Western Washington house.
In my reading, there’s not a lot of consensus on the quality/difficulty of the Eb-Ty (or other hidden fasteners, for that matter) system with Ipe. Given the low height (~24″) of my deck, a top side only system is the only one I’ll consider.
It seems that the biggest complaint with the Eb-Ty system (outside of installation time) is the way the fasteners handle seasonal expansion. Now I see that the company has come out with a few new variants, including their “Eb-Ty Live Cylinder” option. I don’t know how long they’ve been available, but searching this site, JLC and Google hasn’t turned up much.
http://www.ebty.com/products_ebty_deck_fasteners.php
It looks like the idea is to make the board divider more mechanically flexible.
Has anyone used these, or been involved in their development? Any observations?
For what it’s worth, I’ll probably be laying 1 X 6 boards on 16″ centers using one of the lower profile (Eb-Ty mini or the live-cylinder jr.) options. So far my quotes for premilling a groove are adding about 0.40 – 0.50 an l.f., so I’ll most likely just burn up an old blade on the bisquick joiner making grooves to order.
Thanks,
-t
Replies
You might compare this website. I think their IPE comes pre-grooved, they also sell the IPE Clip, not sure if you've looked at it.
Hi,
To each their own decision, here is what I did: I did a 450 sf Ipe 2 y ago, my first. I looked at tiger clay and ebty and some other clips. My concern was board movemet, the very thing you seem to like. If I put in where I want it, I hope it will stay put.
I was concernd with UV breaking down the plastic clips, espically the ones that were under stress. Unitlatle, I did 5/4, 16"oc, two SS 2 1/2" screws, plugged and sanded,
As a belt and suspenders, Glued every board down with PL400, used 2 full cases of the big tubes. Yes overkill, but its mine and I wanted no movemet. 2 years later, it has yet to move or split. I did NOT wax board ends.
Agaian, it was my first Ipe deck, and I do NOT claim to be an expert on ths,
Dave