Metal Corner Brackets

You can make simple Metal Corner Brackets much easier and the general concept is the same first you need to figure out how long to make them the trade-off here is how much you want to restrict movement under the play structure the other option is to enclose the bottom of your structure with plywood walls I made relatively small corner braces that go between the first and second inner joists it’s hard to beat a chop saw or miter saw for making 45-degree cuts but if you have a carpenter speed square in a circular saw or even a handsaw you can get the same results I marked all of the posts at the same height so that each corner brace would be mounted at the same level.

I cut more braces using the first one to get them all the same length now you might think I’ve gotten the angle wrong on the end of these but for the braces that are going between joists, this actually works better note that they are not supporting the floor but instead are going to be bolted to the beams as cross bracing make 45-degree pilot holes in the bottom end and pre-plate screws to make installation easier these eight two by fours are the inside half of the braces if you don’t have a compound miter saw the outside half is just as easy just line the ends up with the four by four post like this.

If you do have a compound miter saw and want to do a lot of extra work set it for 45 degrees in both directions and cut the ends of the outside braces like this cut will allow them to meet on the outside of the post like so it can be difficult to get a compound cut like this the exact right length you could use a measuring tape but then you also have to get the angle of the cut right or you can just hold the board up and mark the approximate location and angle in one go my recommendation is to test fit the compound miter cut to find out how much to trim off the other end and then cut the 45-degree diagonal side to get the board to the right length once you get the two halves of the braces set up.

You can drill Metal Corner Brackets holes and connect them with structural screws three structural screws is probably enough to hold the braces together but I went ahead and took them apart and glue them together with wood glue to give them extra strength I used four-inch long 5/16 lag screws to hold the braces to the posts and three-inch-long lag screws to hold them to the beams I also replaced the temporary deck screws with structural screws these corner braces help the wiggle significantly here is the difference between the before and after bracing once you have the decking and braces aren’t the play structure can be used.