Back in the day, I built a lot of decks but haven’t done any recently. I’ve been looking at changing the railing system on my own deck to one of those stainless cable systems. However, I’d like to NOT have to take all my posts off and drill them. Does anyone make a “surface mount” system with something like stainless eye bolts or other surface mount fasteners? It seems like all the system I’ve investigated are “through the posts” systems. Anyone have any experience with anything else?
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Check out the latest issue of FHB - great comprehensive article on the subject by Mike Guertin.
Read the article - that's why I DON'T want to use the "through the posts" version. The mounting hardware would cost more than the cable.
no experience outside of googling
Here's something I've found for you.
Lag'd cable rail
Have not used this product.
You could also go verticle-(which our inspectors prefer over the "climbing" feature of the horizontal rails)
All of their versions seem to be for metal posts. I'm looking for something that I can install on my existing treated 4x4s. I spent quite a bit of time on the web doing some research - I guess I'll have to spend some more.
wego
Sorry, when I added the link, I thought it would go to the page I was looking at-didn't happen. Google isn't everything...............
But,
and a big butt as I cannot speak on this install. I did find SS lag screws that were meant to accept the aircraft cable. I'd not warrant their ability to hold and not pull out-but they are out there if you keep searching.
No reason that you couldn't put lags in the side of the 4 X 4's and go from there. You'd have to add a 2 x 4" to each corner so the cables lined up but it would work just fine. I don't think it would look so good however unless you added some sort of additional top rail to cover the cable and lags.
Sorry, I misunderstood what you meant by surface mount. I thought you were trying to go from the inside face of one post to the next without going through. The only thing I can think of that would certainly be different looking and probably a bit pricey would be to use a peice of stainless steel angle at each post that was drilled for your cable to run through. Why not drill the posts in place? You could make a simple jig the height of the posts, clamp and go.
I wonder if you could use aluminum channel, combined with some sort of grommet to prevent corrosion? Or maybe just coated cable.