Curved Handrailing

[Top Knot]

A job i tackled in August 2010. The DOMINO was a great help for making the joints onto the posts and the midway joins in the handraining.
a slide show can be found on Youtube if the link does not work, search for TopKnotCarpentry.

the making of a tangent hand-railing

 

[Redfox]

Very beautifull made. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Jacques.

 

[ajones]

[welcome] knot

Impresive first post...
its always interesting to see curved work.very polished video. @4mins approx  why not mitre the risers to the string?

 

[Administrator_JSVN]

Very nice! I would agree that curved work is fascinating. Thanks for sharing your project and welcome to the forum. Hope we hear more from you.

 

[Chuck Kiser]

Very nice work Graham. Kudos to you and your apprentice. [cool]

 

[Chris Hughes]

Nice balustrade.  The stair system fills that space very nicely.  How did you establish the radius?  Did you build a barrel in the shop.  Here in the States we would use the rough stairs to attach right angle jigs to clamp the rail stock to during "form up".

 

[Top Knot]

Firstly, thank to all for the welcome!

Secondly, Thank you all for the compliments.

@ Festoolfootstool
1.) Not sure I understand what you mean by "polished video"  [unsure]
2.) Quote: "why not mitre the risers to the string". Well spotted. The Cladding of the risers and treads was done by someone else. He got that job in conjunction with the flooring around the house. I cringed at most of what he did but it was all out of my hands. He did not want to do the handrailing and posts for obvious reasons... Thats when I came onto the scene. If I had been involved with the project from the very begining I would have proposed chopping out all the concrete substructure and started from fresh with solid wood. From the very first step at least to where the stairs meet the ceiling/roof of the cupboard that is found under the stairs in the corner... does that make sense  [huh]

@ Chris Huges:
Quote: "How did you establish the radius?"
with lots of swearing  [mad] at horrible concrete  [big grin]
I used a combination of three seperate methods (i did not want to make a mistake  [eek])
1.) one was to pull plumblines down to the ground onto a piece of Masonite I then measured that radius and transfered it to the "barrel" I built in my shop along with taking note of total rise of that section.
2.) this was the hardest. I took a piece of Masonite to the underside of the concrete. I then measured that radius and did a number of scale drawings on computer and projected the inclined circle onto the ground and checked that method 1 and 2 where for the most part on par.
3.) I kept the old steel balustrade and held them up against my jig.

Quote: "Here in the States we would use the rough stairs to attach right angle jigs to clamp the rail stock to during "form up""
I had never come across this method before and if I had I think it would have saved me copious amounts of time in the building of my Jig. Its a pretty self explanatory method and for the most part fool proof! Can you please send me photos, if you have any, of this method I'd love to learn more about it.

 

[ajones]

Hi by polished I mean very good it looks like its been edited by a  pro. [smile]

 

[Top Knot]

[embarassed]
thank you...
Although it has been suggested I change the music [big grin]

 

[ajones]

Yes +1 on the music [big grin] good call..

 

[Top Knot]

Ok ok...  so I've now done an "Audio Swap..." I hope its better now...
[big grin]

 

[RONWEN]

Exquisite work Graham!

 

[Chris Hughes]

Graham,

I don't have any photos of process work that far back for me.  I "bent" rails in the mid '90s and did not have a digital camera "back in the day".  Maybe I can build a mock up and photo document it.

I had these two old guys from the union that were members of some guild that squared me away on bending geometrics as we call them in the States.  The system we used was an L J Smith stair system out of Ohio, USA.  The manufacturer devised a 7 piece interlocking ,via a tongue and grove, rail and a form made of two pieces that were sacrificial for clamping against.  This technique requires lots of "jergie" clamps.  One clamp to pull the build up to the "T" forms attached to the stairs at the center-line for the balustrade, usually a 10" clamp.  In between the forms we use as many clamps as we can place to pull the gaps closed and help smooth the radius.  I have used this system for bending all radii that I can not cut but the biggest advantage, as with your project as well,  is that you can transfer the roll of the profile as well.

 

[woodguy7]

Graham, stunning work.  I am realy interested in stairs, especially curved ones.  What sort of time is involved in making & fitting a curved handrail like that ?

Cheers, Woodguy.

 

[-The Dutch Guy-]

Welcome on the fog, you can't say it enough!

Those handrails (and the rest of the stairs)  are awsome!! Must have taken a lot of long hours to fit those snug.... [scared]
Nice movie too.

Cheerz René

 

[Top Knot]

@ Chris Hughes

YES please Chris... any info you can gather for me to add my arsenal of goodies and tricks for me to get future jobs like this done in a more efficient way or just differently. Even a sketch of the systems you have used before would work as opposed to building a whole mock-up.
Something I am not clear on is why would you place your T-clamps in the "center line" of your balustrade?
The next would be Jergie clamps  [embarassed] what are they?

What sort of time is involved in making & fitting a curved handrail like that?

My part of the job was to make up and install all the handrailings, the posts and balusters you see in the video clip. I was also responsible for all the curved paneling found below the first flight of stairs and also the cupboard doors found next to the first flight. basically everything except the flooring, the treads and the risers. Also part of this job was another handrailing found else where in the same house that had to match the look of the main stairs in the entrance hall. See a pictures below. The two jobs combined took me and my apprentice about 3 months to complete. Bear in mind that this was the first curved handrailingI have EVER done. I spent a fair amount of the time doing copious amounts of research with regards to how to do it and more importantly what kind of glue I should use.

[attachimg=#]

[attachimg=#]
The Second Handrailing

Must have taken a lot of long hours to fit those snug.... [scared]

Indeed it did. In the clip you'll see the caption the "Impossible Joint" The top and bottom railings obviously had the same settings for each cut. The bottom rail took me a whole 2 days to install. The top was at least quicker because I had taken notes of what settings I was using on my saw.

 

[woodguy7]

Well, that job is a credit to you, you should be pleased.  I think it will be good to have you on here  [thumbs up]

Woodguy

 

[Chris Hughes]

Sorry, I meant center line indexed minus the rail thickness.  So if I had a three inch wide rail I would mark 1 1/2 from the vertical portion of the brace.  I would then align the mark with the center line with the brace justified to the riser to establish the radius.

Jergies are Jergensen wood clamps.

If you like the subject I recommend a book A Treaties on Stairbuilding and Handrailing by Mowat.  The book is about 100 years old but the math is stupefying.

 

[Ken Nagrod]

If you like the subject I recommend a book A Treaties on Stairbuilding and Handrailing by Mowat.  The book is about 100 years old but the math is stupefying.

2nd that! [thumbs up]

 

[Top Knot]

@ Chris
Ok that makes a whole lot more sense. No doubt you were thinking that while you were writing and the keyboard simply was't listening  [tongue]

If you like the subject I recommend a book A Treaties on Stairbuilding and Handrailing by Mowat.  The book is about 100 years old but the math is stupefying.

I bought the book: "A Simplified Guide to Custom Stairbuilding and Tangent Handrailing" By: George R. diCristina
Sadly it did little to offer me solutions for this particular job. However its a wealth of information!! Does Mowat's book also revolve mostly around the math behind tangent handrailings? Would the two books compliment each other nicely or would it be a bunch of repeated formulas? Anybody have both books?