How Custom Curved Wood Stair Rails Are Made

hey there everybody Sean Larsen realtor in the Franklin Brentwood Tennessee area just wanted to share a little bit of information today about stair rails and how they create those awesome curves like you see right here quite often when we're showing homes with a custom stair rails like that people guess about how they actually make those and how they bend the wood like that the most common guess is that they heat it maybe with steam like they do I think in traditional shipbuilding but that's not the case at all there's a better trick to it well if you let me give you just a close-up here of the stair rail now that traditionally is perceived to be one piece of wood there and if you look above on the straight runs on the balcony that is one piece of wood on the straight runs what they do is they simply cut it and then join it to the post and you're good to go but on the curves every staircase is different so they have to match the curve of the staircase and so what they do is they take not one piece of wood but a series of pieces so each rail that you see right here is about probably about five or six thin pieces of wood and what they are is it's the same as if you had one piece but it was just sliced in a bunch of thin pieces and then each piece has a little notch on it that locks it in from sliding up and down from each other so it keeps them all locked into the right shape but it lets it slide lengthways think of it like when you take a book a really thick book and you bend the books assuming it's a soft bound you bend the book and the pages slide against each other that's the exact same thing that these pieces of wood are doing so what they do is they sit there and they put adhesive in between every piece of that and they sit there and put them together and when they're assembled like that they look like the rail you see here but because they are not yet attached by the adhesive and they have that notch in it that locks them in from sliding up and down it maintains its shape but as you bend it the pieces actually get the slide lengthwise against each other so what they do is they bring it in and they lay it down on the steps here just down here and what they will do is they will sit there and clamp it and they will actually screw the clamps into the steps there so when you see a rail like this you're probably going to see probably are 50 or 60 or more clamps while that dries so they sit there and they bend it clamp it to the steps themselves and then let the adhesive drive for whatever length is required couple days or a week or something like that once it's done what they do is they release it and then they finish the rail sand it and everything and it looks like one piece of wood it is awesome to see and it looks like a robot blew up when you see how the clamps bolted to the steps so there you have it if you've ever wondered how they create those awesome curves like that on those stair rails that's how they do it talk to you soon

Channel: Shaun Larson, HomeSellingNinja

Views: 21,316

Keywords: YouTube Editor

Id: EftqBe2IFek

Length: 3min 2sec (182 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 27 2016