Help with Chicago Bar Rail

[Norm Schlismann]

I am building a bar and will be installing a 6" Chicago Style Bar rail I purchased. Does anyone have experiance miter cutting one of these? Any suggetions on how to place it in my miter saw to make the 45 miter? Also how do you install it to the bartop securely? There is a 6" lip that I was going to glue and screw from underneath, but that does not seem like it would be sturdy enough to hold the weight of people leaning on it.

[Jamie Buxton]

I just looked around the web, and saw several different profiles called Chicago Bar Rail. So the complete answer to your questions might depend on what your profile is.

I certainly wouldn't leave six inches of the bar rail hanging unsupported off the front of the bar top. Maybe you could put some wood corbels under it, and they'd also be decorative.

As to cutting the 45, again it depends on which profile you have. Some have a flat bottom, so there's no issue putting it in a miter saw. If you have a profile in which the bottom droops downward, I'd cut a support stick which sits in the saw under the rear of the rail. The thickness of the stick props the rail up so that it is horizontal in the saw.

[Craig Kershaw]

Norm - I just built a bar in my basement with some cherry bar rail I bought at a place called Hardwoods in Frederick, MD. Here are some pointers:

Installation - The bar rail had a step like notch on the underside. The surface of the bar was constructed with two layers which need to be offset so that the notch on the underside of the bar rail fits snugly . The bottom layer is 3/4" birch plywood and the top of my bar is tiger maple. I used 16 gauge finish nails (nail gun) driven thorough the bottom of the birch plywood into the bar rail to secure the bar rail to the bar top.

Miter joint of the bar rail - This part was a little tricky and I made a jig so that the miter joint matched up. When I first tested a miter joint on my compound miter say by just laying the bar rail flat on the saw, it did not line up right. I made a jig that made the "notch" in the bar rail parallel withehe base of the miter saw. Using the jig gave me a much better fit.

[Paul Atkins]

You've got two threads going here with the same question. I replied for your first one - check out the picture.