I try and do as many decks as I can….I’m a big fan of Mahogany, and my customers love it. Over the years, I’ve come up with a semi-maintainence free type of railing system. Basically, the balusters are made of PVC coated wood, with built up pre primed fir handrails (Yes you have to paint the top and bottom rail). Anyway, have any of you guys or gals ever laminated two pieces of 1×4 inch azek together with good results.
I’d love to replace the fir with azek if I cah achieve a good lamination and still be able to rout my handrail profile. I realize that a handrail made out of Azek will be slightly floppy, but I run a mahogany caprail over that anyway (over the posts).
any thoughts on laminating azek would be helpful-including thoughts on adhesives….PVC cement, bond and fill, etc.
thanks guys
millsie
Replies
This is a window frame built with 5/4 x 4 Azek, the sill is doubled 5/4 x4 glued together. The frame is glued, I used pocket hole screws for the clamping of the frame and left them in as a back up.
For the sill, I used the Azek glue. Just have a clean surface and put it down, its basically a water clean up version of plumbers glue without the stink. The downside, is the glue needs overnight to 24 hours to set up, so you need to have quite a few clamps. The glue makes a chemical weld like plumbers glue and once it has set, the bond is stronger than the azek product. The other downside is the expense, like Azek, the glue is expensive and you'll use quite a bit. The standard plumbers size azek glue is $18 at my lumber yard.
The doubled up azek is stiffer than the single ply, so it is easier to keep straight when nailing into framing.
I have laminated a bunch of azek to replicate historic windowsills and water tables.
I have used pipe cement, or for a slightly longer wet time, the stuff sold for assembling PVC shower stalls. Super strong bonds. The only difficulty is getting everything clamped up quickly without 'slippage'. The stuff is very slippery compared to wood (this is because the cement dissolves the material).
With pipe cement, you do not have to wait more than a couple hours at most before cutting or shaping.
Screw/nail holes or imperfections can be filled with a mix of pvc sawdust and cement, or bondo.
Edited 4/7/2006 12:44 pm ET by Snowmon
Azek laminates great. We use a two part structural adhesive called Chem-Set Trim Grip. The Azek and the adhesive both mill nicely. The addition of aluminum in the core of your laminations can help greatly with adding rigidity.