Do Not Use Either Of Them. John

John, why not/ ..and what do you recommend?

Thanks, Chris

Face fastining,if you want the no fastener look use T&G material. J

AGree w/ John. Don't know Tiger Claw, but My $.02: Used EB-ty on small 4x5 entry porch w/ two steps. P.I.T.A.! Between marking and cutting the biscuit slots and jockeying the plastic things .... never again. I can't imagine doing on a big deck.

I also agree with John. In fact, I decided to use trimhead screws (with brown colored heads) after reading a follow-up by John (at least I think it was him) when he said, "after all, it's a deck".

Both those fastening systems fall way short for what I am looking for in a high end project,if I am going to get paid for a no fastener look with ipe, T&G material is going down over those joists. This is the market I am in over here in cow town,now Joe Wood and Mr deck have access to a whole nother kinda Folks if I was building over there I would probley go 5/4 material with the screw/plugs/sand thing but most of the time with me and the Wallet it is just a deck, countersink and flooding the holes with finish is what my Customers want the quicker I get out of their backyard the better they like it. J

I like the look of hidden fasteners, it gives the deck a much "cleaner" appearance. If you having the deck professionally installed, it's going to cost more. With some installers, a lot more, because they don't want to be bothered so they inflate the price to steer you towards face fastening. If you're doing it yourself, what's another day of work for the look you'd prefer?

You might want to take a look at Correct Deck (www.correctdeck.com). They have a hidden fastener system (similiar to Eb-Ty) and pre-grooved decking. I installed Correct Deck last summer and it went down pretty nicely. Just saw the deck yesterday and it still looks very nice. Correct Deck and their hidden fastening is one of the more expensive composite decking products though.

I haven't used Tiger Claw but my understanding is that it basically requires you to drive the decking onto the "spikes" on the fastener. Depending on the density of the decking that may be difficult to do. Some of the composites are very dense and I could see that getting real old, real fast. On the other hand, cedar is pretty soft.

I think the May issue of Fine Homebuilding had an article on the various hidden fastening systems. It may or may not be on shelves any more but your local library might have a copy.

Mike