This was a challenge. Two staircases, four floors  (8 runs) of railings. The contractor called us less than a month before the customer was due to move in. The rail had to encase a 1/2″ x 1″ bronze channel that was supposed to be done before we got there. It wasn’t. The iron guy was new at it and we made him redo about 80% of it due to uneven curves or it being out of level.   If the ironwork isn’t level the railing profile will be distorted.

There are no easements or newel posts so the railing had to be continuous from top to bottom. The joints were to be smooth. The idea was to be able to put your hand on the railing at the top and never let go until you get to the bottom, while never feeling joints on the way down. All of the joints were done with  5/16″ rail bolts. We had a bandsaw, several routers, router jigs, custom router bits and lots of hand tools on site. We worked for about 21 days to finish on time. These pictures are with the railing having only one sealer coat. If you’ve seen our post about making curved handrailing you’ll know that Mike spent many days just fitting the blanks onto the bronze channel before we were able to do any shaping.

Originally we were to just supply the wood for this project; the aromatic red cedar stringers and risers and the ash treads. That changed when the carpenter sort of messed up. He had gaps where there shouldn’t have been gaps.  “Could we help”?

Mike did a CAD drawing of the special cove moulding where the tread meets the stringer and we had the pieces made on a CNC router. The pieces made on the CNC router matched the straight cove material we had made.  I think the overall effect is pretty nice. I haven’t seen this done anywhere before. The white oak handrail starts at an ash partition.  The partition is mounted on a steel sub-frame with poplar blocking. Aluminum “Z” clips provide a nice fastener-free panel. The meeting joint between the panels and at the end cap is an ash spline.  It’s finished with an aromatic red cedar cap.

We love being able to do new things, so when the customer told us she needed railings for her patio we jumped at the chance.

The newels and main railings are of aromatic red cedar found in the woods around the house. Care was taken to find just the right curves and sizes. We spent a weekend walking the property with marking tape and a chainsaw picking out likely candidates. With a pile of what looked like the start of a good bonfire we began selecting our posts. The posts are set on 2” galvanized pipe core drilled into the sub stair. They were later embedded in 8” of concrete and stone. We got to use some cool tenon cutters and our 1/2” hole hog drill to do the joinery and added a wedge just for fun. The vine work was grape and Osage orange. It was wired and nailed with hand cut clinch nails to the structure. No finish required.

Also in this house are about seventy feet of straight handrailing, and the handrailing for a spiral staircase. You can see construction details on this particular spiral staircase in the “How We Do It” section. The spiral was handcarved, as were the railing ends. There are also a few locations where the spindles go through the handrailing. These details required a lot of specialty hand work. Also note that the spiral changes directions at the top.

Most companies now use laminated bendable material to make spiral staircase handrailing. We still make ours using traditional methods, and it makes a big difference in the end product. See how this was done in the “How We Do It” section. More pictures of this railing are located in the “Loft” section under “Our Work”. Also to the right is a hand carved vollute in antique longleaf yellow pine.