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What are these railings?

dieselpig | Posted in Construction Techniques on July 20, 2006 04:49am

I’ve been asked to replicate this porch on a house that I just added a second floor to.  The wood is mahoghany… but what the heck are these ballusters?  It appears as though the upper rail is drilled to receive them, but theres some sort of ‘track’ on the bottom as drilling obviously wouldn’t work well on an exterior bottom rail.  And what the heck are they made out of?  I’m thinking custom metal working going on there?

Anyway… the pictures were just emailed to me.  I can get an address from her tomorrow and go see for myself, but I’m real curious about them so I figured I’d ask around…

If anyone is curious enough I could email you the large files to zoom in on.

View Image

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Replies

  1. User avater
    dieselpig | Jul 20, 2006 05:01am | #1

    Sorry gang... I reduced the file sizes and you really can't see much detail.  Guess it'll have to wait until tomorrow or Friday when I can see for myself.

    View Image
  2. dustinf | Jul 20, 2006 05:10am | #2

    It's hard to tell exactly what they have going on there, but I've done a similar detail.  I used off the shelf metal railings, and just cut a dado into wood top/bottom rails to accept the metal top and bottom rail.

    How close does it have to match?  Is the new porch being built next to the existing porch? Or does the customer just like the railing?

    In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey.

    1. User avater
      dieselpig | Jul 20, 2006 05:17am | #3

      Part of the second floor addition we're wrapping up includes replacing the existing front porch.  The second floor extends over the porch.  Right now it is just roughed in, but now she'd like us to finish it and this is the 'look' she's going for.  I'll bring the camera to work tomorrow and take a few pics of the job as well as some close-up of that porch if I get over there.View Image

  3. User avater
    DDay | Jul 20, 2006 05:23am | #4

    It looks a lot like deckorators, which are aluminum balusters that fit into a little top hat looking mount.  The top hat mount is screwed down through the top and the baluster just sits on top of the bottom one and into the one on the top rail.  I used those on my sisters deck, the rails are just 2x4 Ipe and deckorater balusters.

    http://www.bristolvalley.com/catalog.asp?prodid=471313&showprevnext=1

     



    Edited 7/19/2006 10:24 pm ET by DDay

    1. User avater
      dieselpig | Jul 20, 2006 05:25am | #5

      Thank you... that appears to be very similar.  What was your overall impression of the product?  Was it very expensive?  Worth it?  Ease of installation?  And where they readily available locally, or did you special order/internet?  Thanks again.View Image

    2. User avater
      dieselpig | Jul 20, 2006 05:26am | #6

      Did you just add that link.... or am I just asking you questions that you've already answered?   :)View Image

      1. User avater
        DDay | Jul 20, 2006 05:44am | #9

        I forgot to add it when I clicked to post.

        They were easy to install for the most part.  I used a construction master to get the spacing, marked those off for center to center and centered the mark in the middle of the 2x4, then drill a hole on the mark since I was using Ipe and the screws were SS.  With mahogany you should be able to just screw right in, that would save a ton of time.  We used these attachment brackets to mount the 2x4's, where it was Ipe, I didn't feel like notching out the 4x4 posts or anything like that.  The brackets were easy to attach and blend fairly well with the Ipe.  With the bottom rail set, you just put the balusters on the top caps and then put the top rail down on top.  If you have another person and start at one end and go one by one it takes a minute or two, then screwed in the bracket for the top rail.

        One screw up that I made but fixed enough to cover is on the stairs.  The top caps are angled for the sloped rail and you need to drill the hole generally with that angle or in your case, screw it in at the angle of the stairs.  I didn't do a sample and I screwed straight in thinking the top caps mounted that way but the screw goes at an angle.  One rail mounts nicer than the other but my sis' got a 24'x16' deck, 11' high, Ipe deck and railings for nothing, so she doesn't look for anything.

        The have the basic top hat's that you don't really see and they have the fancy ones.  The balusters are aluminum with a powder coat finish, 20 or 25 yr warranty.  The balusters are available in black, bronze, green, etc and run about $20 for 10 pack.  Around here there are a number of places that carry them, one close to you is Lowes in Milford.  Were doing a deck this summer and they had them on sale for $14 per box and said they were closing them out but who knows.

        http://www.bristolvalley.com/index.asp?category=14787

  4. User avater
    BillHartmann | Jul 20, 2006 05:27am | #7

    Don't you read FHB?

    They advertise in them all the time.

    http://www.deckorators.com/DeckRailing-Balusters.htm

    1. User avater
      dieselpig | Jul 20, 2006 05:29am | #8

      What's FHB?

      ;)View Image

  5. NCtim | Jul 24, 2006 08:14pm | #10

    Now you're going to have to email all of us. We can't let this teaser go.

    1. User avater
      DDay | Jul 25, 2006 02:13am | #11

      It's just a little tip to save a little $$ on those.  He gave me a very good nail source in our area last year, so its just giving a bit back.

      Besides, if everyone knew, it wouldn't be available for much longer.

      1. NCtim | Jul 26, 2006 02:51am | #12

        Comprendo! You take very good photos, BTW.

  6. User avater
    DDay | Dec 08, 2006 01:47am | #13

    Did you ever use the balusters I emailed you about in this thread or did you use another. What was your impression? I've only used them twice and both were with Ipe, so it was slow with all the pre drilling.

    1. User avater
      dieselpig | Dec 08, 2006 01:56am | #14

      As it turned out, I only did the framing on that porch.  It was part of a major remodel/ 2nd floor addition we did last summer.  The porch was originally under the GC's own scope and not mine.  But we had a week to kill between jobs so he asked me if I was interested.  I took it on, but then it started to snowball (like the rest of the job) in scope and time so I just did the framing and the GC did the finish work with his guys.  I haven't actually been back there to see how it finished up, but the last I heard they were planning on ordering those ballusters..... if she ever actually decided on a color anyway.View Image

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