wanted to update some railings, they didn’t suit the contemporary styling that everything else followed. So i came up with a few designs and it seemed simple was better. Went with steel square tubing for the main frame, then added a 1/4" Flat bar under the top hand rail.
THE BEFORE:
The wood and spindles needed to go
after numerous measurments to get the slope right
(Warning: Shitty cell phone pics…)
Don’t have many pictures of the fabricating process, but i cut and welded everything together. Marked the tubing and drilled all the holes. Welded some flange plates to the bottom of each post for lagging into the stairs
Off for gloss black powdercoating:
Contractors did this portion. Pulled the carpet of the stairs and removed the existing ralings. It was decided to stain the oak stairs an ebony color and paint the vertical risers a dark grey.
The ebony stain gave the wood an exotic feel (calm down Skunk)
Anxious, i put the railings in place and threaded the stainless steel cable.
Making all the appriate measurements, the cable was cut to length and the threaded hardware was crimped in place:
the crimping bends the hardware a bit, so it needs to be hammer tapped straight:
Fed through the posts, the cables are tightened to about 120lbs of tension and capped with an acorn nut.
Almost done… all the cables are tightened.
Right now i’m working on the handrail that mounts to the wall. Going to add some ambient lighting to project onto the staircase. For pimp factor, the lights will come on automatically when it’s dark out.
I’ll update this when 100% complete. This was a great project, the first time i worked with a tensioned cable system. Turned out well so far… and DEFINENTLY gives a much needed updated look.
quality pics when finished.
