Railing Material

[Wes Bischel]

With Kevin's previous post, it reminded me that I had a similar questions. I need to build a railing on our side porch and had a material question and design question.
For materials, most of the house trim is painted fir - the railings will be painted as well. Is this a good wood to stay with? If not, what would be recommended?

On the design, what is the best way to attach/interface the spindles with the bottom rail? I have seen some designs that leave the bottom rail open - i.e. two boards on either side with the middle open. The other is a beveled top to the bottom rail with the spindle coped to fit. I can see pros and cons to either, but I'm wondering if there is a "standard" detail.

The house is a '50's cape cod so the design and detailing is fairly simple.

Any advise would be appreciated,
Wes

[Jamie Buxton]

Wes --

I see lots of ways to attach the spindles to the bottom rail. Some of them are really dumb, but others make more sense. The prime objective is to not have wells where water can collect. Either of the designs you describe are okay in this respect.

Following is a fairly standard design which sounds a lot like your second one...

The top rail has a full-length dado along the bottom. The dado is the width of the spindles. The spindles are rectangular or square, so when you fit them up into the dado, they can't rotate. The top surface of the bottom rail has a flat land along the middle, and is beveled down toward the edges. The flat land is same width as the spindles. You can position a spindle anyplace along the top and bottom rails. Each spindle is fastened in place with a nail up through the bottom rail, and with two toe-nailed nails into the top rail. The heads are hidden, so you can use headed nails (not finish nails) to ensure that things don't pull apart.


The same materials and technique work for stairs. You only need to miter the ends of the spindles at the stair angle.

[Kevin Swindle]

Wes,

This website offers a lot of information and architectural woodwork for old houses. There is some good information on porch design. When I ordered my free catalog a few years ago, they also sent a book on porch design.

http://vintagewoodworks.com/

[Wes Bischel]

Hey guys,
Thanks for the input. Kevin, the website did have a good diagram of the bottom rail - they have some really nice stuff, just wish it would go with my cape cod :rolleyes:

Thanks again, Wes