Frequently, I have to invent solutions to problems where there may not be a perfectly orthodox precedent.
The bottom flight of his staircase has never had a handrail, and the house is a craftsman that just turned 100 years old. Willem loves the soul of that house, and everything he's done to the place is in keeping with it's original character.
Clear vertically grained fir is getting to be a mighty luxurious resource, and Willem has had to bite the bullet over the years and use plenty of it, to repair and restore parts of the exterior.
Now he has grandbabies, and they're starting to explore the staircase. Gotta have a rail.
There didn't seem to be a good way to fit this one, but working together, this is what we came up with:
First, we installed the newel, which was not as easy as it looks. We let the newel through the stair tread in a way that
allowed for heavy bolting beneath the floor. It's solid.For the rail, we identified the angle and elevation we wanted the rail to sit at, by using a dummy piece of 1 x 4, after a satisfactory dry fit, this gave us a measured and cut stencil for working with the actual handrail stock.
The handrail stock is clear douglas fir, and Willem had custom planer knives made so that he could achieve the original profile. Not cheap. That means no room for error. One shot at getting it right.
The simple bevel at the bottom of the rail went first.
By using a typical bevel guage, this wasn't the hard part. At the bottom, two four inch screws secure the rail positively to the solid wood newel, they will capped with douglas fir plugs.The mounting of the top of the rail required much more complex cutting. At the back of the rail at its top, there is a reverse bevel that fits tightly to the existing moulding.
But the front of the rail has to be seated across the surface where the trim is offset.
A good tight fight will be tricky, without leaving space in the tight corner where the existing stringer and trim are not ligned up.The solution was to trace and mortice the profile of the finished piece, after a satisfactory dry fit, and let the rail into the stringer.
This accounts for the offset nature of the stringer and trim and allows for a good tight fit without any gaps.The rail is glued and screwed to the stringer and fits tightly inside of its complex mortice.
The end of the piece has a simple 90 degree return, showing it's lovely profile at the rail's end. The screws will be capped with douglas fir plugs. Now, with the rail installed,
it's time to start installing the ballustrades. The common ballustrades were no problem. While the stairtreads vary in size, making a perfectly uniform layout impossible, by varying the pattern by fractions, we got a nice look.
(stay tuned)
