How to Build a Porch Rail | This Old House

okay now the first thing I want to do is I want to establish the height of the railing off of the deck and that's going to be 36 inches so I'm gonna mock this post here at 36 inches and I want to be right in the center of it over here I'm gonna mark 36 inches and be in the center again so right there okay now it's very difficult to get an inside measurement accurately so if you hold that tape there and I go like this and I measure I've got to bend my tape it's kind of difficult to read it exactly because the tape is curved so what I do is I take two sticks that fit loosely in the opening I cut the ends on a bevel like that I reverse the stick so each bevel is facing out I then take the stick and I hold it on that thirty-six inch mark and I bring it over here and I hold it on this thirty-six inch mark I push the sticks apart tightly put some pressure on it and all I do is I put a line anywhere with a two sticks meet now we're ready to transfer our measurement to our handrail and to do that I'm going to take the handrail I'm going to take one end of our stick and place it on the handrail I'm going to mark the end right there in the center of the railing what I want to do is now slide the two sticks until my marks line up just like that make sure I'm on position of the center of the handrail here and I mark the end and that's the length of our handrail now remember a handrail cannot be cut square because we have a round column to get the contour or the radius of the column I'm actually going to use this profile jig right here when I take it and I push it against something it'll follow the contour of it and that gives me the radius of the column now I'll just transfer this curve to the end of the handrail now we're ready to cut it with the jigsaw there you go not bad all right all right our bottom and our top rails are cut now our balusters are going to attach the railings like this now we could toenail into the side of the balusters but that would be a hole that you the fill once you paint it so what I like to do is attach the balises to a thin strip of wood like this screwing them through the thin strip of wood into the balusters so the next thing we want to do is rip down some more of these strips on my table saw that's great guys it's important that you seal all the pieces of the railing system before it gets assembled that allows you to get to all six sides especially the end grain and underneath the nailing strip now all of the pieces to our railing system are stained and it's ready for assembly now the first thing we need to know is that the building code requires that the space between our balusters cannot exceed four inches so what I do is I take this piece of material right here it's an elastic band get it at a fabric store and I mark two inch increments all along the rubber band and I put a little dot where the balusters would be located so now what I'm going to do is I'm going to take my nailing strip for the bottom and I'm going to put it right here like that against the bottom of the balises I'm going to take the first ballast that I'm going to put it against the end of the nailing strip this is going to represent the edge of the house so now what I want to do is I want to take the rubber band and hold it just like that now Mike you come down here and I'm going to place this balusters so we're now looking at the edge of our column okay so now I want you to pull that rubber band until the lines line up now as you pull the rubber band you can see that the space between the lines is actually getting bigger and it's also getting bigger equally over the entire run now I want you to keep pulling it until we get as close to four inches on Center as we can right there okay so now that's three and fifteen sixteenths of an inch from the edge of this bouncer to the edge of this bouncer now what I'll do is I'll transfer those marks on to the my nailing strip once both nailing strips are marked putting together the pieces is pretty easy first I'm going to tack it together using some quarter crown staples then I'll screw it together using some 2-inch ceramic screws okay the bottom ones in place now you want to pass me that ballast or system right in there like that put it on center yeah tap it down make it nice and tight all right now put the top railing right on top of that okay now we'll just hold it in place with a couple of screws on the underside of the handrail next to the nailing strip I pre-drill a hole and screw it into place using a 3-inch ceramic screw what's in on the balusters okay now let's see if it fits look at that pretty good perfect

Channel: This Old House

Views: 634,204

Rating: 4.8601737 out of 5

Keywords: This Old House, Ask This Old House, DIY, Home Improvement, DIY Ideas, Renovation, Renovation Ideas, How To Fix, How To Install, How To Build, Porch, hand rail, railing, rail, safety, Construction, Do It Yourselfbalustrade, balusters, Tom Silva, tom silva this old house, tom silva house, tom silva construction, tom silva tools, tommy silva, home renovation ideas on a budget

Id: q41UfUof21Q

Length: 5min 22sec (322 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 11 2014