Porch Handrailing

[Tom King]

Will have to wait out what looks like three days of rain before I can get back to this job.  The only thing I was able to get done out of the house was my weekly one hour mad dash to town shopping trip, and back right as the rain arrived.

My Mother's main entertainment, other than the TV, is watching birds eat.  We go through 80 lb. of bird seed a week.  Chickens to feed, and puppies to train to litter.

[Ronn W]

80 Lbs?  How big are those birds anyway?

[Tom King]

Just a lot of them.  Fat squirrels too.

[Tom King]

I was aggravated with my old Chinese drill press vise, so ordered a good one.  I need it to make the aluminum mounting blocks for the handrails.  I want them to be easily replaceable.  They will be held in place with machine bolts into alumimum blocks recessed under the ends.

 

 

[Mark J]

I assume you'll use steel fasteners.  Do you worry at all about corrosion with the aluminum brackets?

[Tom King]

I'll use stainless steel machine screws.  It won't be a problem there.  There is a big overhang, and big tree canopies, so it will rarely get wet, and no salt in the air here.

[Tom King]

Here's what the bird seed is for.  Good entertainment for a 106 year old.

And without starting another thread, we had some puppy visitors in an interesting ride.  Kia electric.  It's a lot bigger than they look in pictures, and a pretty impressive vehicle.

[wtnhighlander]

Kia is putting some really nice stuff on the road these days,  for sure!

[Tom King]

[Mark J]

56 minutes ago, Tom King said:

 

 

I use these bibs from Dust Bee Gone for wood turning.

https://dustbeegone.com/shoecovers.html

I can't say they're more fashionable than tape, but easy on, easy off and reusable.  Covers the laces, too.  No real trip hazard, either.  

[Tom King]

I'm used to using blue tape when I do a fiberglass layup.  Then, I do the whole shoes even though I'm wearing old ones.  Aluminum goes everywhere when drilling it.

I keep some of those velcro on gaiters in the truck for when I'm running a chainsaw with short shoes on.

I really like this Wilton drill press vise.

 

[Tom King]

The drill press vise made a good holder for tapping the holes by swinging the table around.  I don't think I would want a ratcheting tap handle.  I go back and forth a lot.

 

[Chestnut]

On 5/30/2022 at 11:58 AM, Mark J said:

I use these bibs from Dust Bee Gone for wood turning.

I never knew this was a thing. Doing more research Shoe Gaiters come in all shapes and sizes, I'm now buying some for many reasons. I hate it when chips from the chain saw fill my shoes.

Sorry for the thread hijack, this thread has been interesting and informative. Also bird watching is interesting for people of all ages! I get more enjoyment from watching my feeder than most of the junk they put on TV these days.

[Tom King]

The short shoe gaiters I use for chainsawing have a hook that grabs the laces at the front, a strap under the instep, and velcro together.  They aren't loose anywhere, so don't tend to grab onto stubble.

[Tom King]

One step at the time with time squeezed in between everything else I have to do.  I have the mounting blocks mounted onto the posts.   I hadn't paid any attention to what wood the posts are.  I had assumed they were Pine, but they're White Oak and hard as a rock.

I still have to make the ones to mount on the brick wall of the house.  I have some oversized pieces of aluminum because it's almost impossible to hammer drill holes in a precise location.  I'll mount those oversize, and mark them to cut the perimeter, then take them down for sizing.

 

[Tom King]

It's a slow go, but if I make any progress every day I think I'll get them done.  

Today I set the anchors in the bricks on the house wall.  I did good not to drill any holes in brackets yet.  If I had made these brackets the same way, the anchors would have landed in a mortar joint.  I drilled small hammer drill holes to help the larger one start in the right place.  The first small hole told me the mortar is Type N, and not strong enough to support these anchors, so I dropped down in the brick below.

I found some socket head stainless machine screws in my accumulation, so will still almost be able to completely hide the mounting brackets.

I was able to get the holes close enough to use the leftover pieces of 1/1/2" bar, so I'll just keep the 1-1/2" plate for later jobs.  

I may run some Tapcons in the mortar joints if mounting the blocks don't seem strong enough with the low bolt.

This type of anchor is not dependent on an accurate hole depth, and still sets the threaded insert flush with the surface.  They're really strong too.

 

[Tom King]

I drilled holes in both ends of the last pieces of 1-1/2x1-1/2 bar that I had, bolted them in place, and marked the height above the floor to match the ones mounted on the posts.  We have the house rented the week of June 17, so I hope I'll have them done by then.  It's a slow go with everything else we have going on, but it's coming along.

 

[Tom King]

I have the blocks mounted on the house with all the mounting holes drilled and tapped for the handrails.

It's so pleasant on that porch, I think I'll set up with only hand tools to fit the railings.  I can just blow the chips off the porch with a cordless leaf blower.  That way also I can park the truck headed to the house right beside the porch, and hear the phone ring when Pam calls.

I'm going to use the junk juvenile wood I cut out of the center of the beams to use as sacrificial templates to fit the handrails by.

The bottom of these top brackets are going to show a little bit, and the lower rail will have its bottom edge below the rollock edge, but I'll do something with them, and people won't be looking at that end anyway.

[Tom King]

All set up on the porch, and the first ones cut to length.  No measuring, so I don't know how long they are.  First one fits just right, and is surprisingly stout just sitting there.

Neither end was exactly square, but by scribing the sacrifice template piece, it doesn't really matter.  After fitting the template ends, both pieces are squeezed to the ends, clamped, screwed together, and the clamp taken off.  One end is marked by the template, and cut with a handsaw.  The cut end is then clamped flush with the template, and the other end marked to be cut.

After I get them all cut, the next step is mortising out for the aluminum bracket blocks.

 

[Tom King]

I'm hoping since all this wood is as dry as it will get here, that everything will continue to fit well.

When I was building new houses, the treated wood was always soaking wet, so I mortised handrails into posts, and the whole thing was assembled as the porch was built.

I don't have any pictures of that process, but you can see the mortises in these pictures of a house I built in 1991.  A small tornado hit that house directly, disassembling part of the porch, but with the mortises and no fasteners in the handrail ends, it all went right back together. 

You can see one of the handrail sections back in place in the second picture.  Every open space between balusters and on the ends exactly the same.  I'll show how I easily do that later in this thread.

 

[drzaius]

I used a similar scheme to secure the handrail to the posts on my deck. Instead of aluminum, I drilled the post and glued in a short length of 1" hardwood dowel. With a router and jig I cut a mortice in the ends of the rails. The rails and spindles were put together in the shop and then the assembly was dropped onto the dowels with a blob of construction adhesive to secure it. It was easy, fast and accurate.

[Tom King]

The railing is not going to block the view too badly, especially with the open center section over the steps. 

I had trouble cutting one template end to fit, for some odd reason, so rather than scribe that end the third time, I made sure the other half stayed in position, and pivoted that template half a little.  When I cut the handrail by the pivoted template, it fit perfectly.  I'm glad to have that stage behind me with no extra pieces to cover any screwups.

I didn't measure how much the end brackets are going to stick down below the bottom of that end of the handrail where I had to drop them because of the mortar joint in the brick, but it's not going to be too bad.  I'll just round over the exposed edges of the aluminum with an aluminum file.  All the others will be hidden.

 

[Tom King]

Other stuff to do yesterday, but back on this today.

It was maybe the most pleasant hand tool day ever.  77 with a light breeze off the water when I started, and only 80 when I finished this stage after lunch.

I'm disappointed that the brackets against the house are exposed because of the mortar joint, but my plan requires putting the brackets up, and off several times, so I didn't really want to use a Tapcon screw.

Next stage is to lay out, and drill the holes for the balusters.  A message came that their order had come in at Lowes, but a trip to town only found a box of 10.....

 

[Mark J]

That first photo speaks volumes.

Personally, I wouldn't fret that bracket for looks.  If the corners are sharp enough to scratch skin then I'd relieve them some, just in case someone is putting their hands down there.  

[Tom King]

I'm planning to round them over with an aluminum file.