How To Make Porch Railings

I think I mentioned it in a previous video that my neighbor replaced his back deck with composit and then he asked me if I wanted the old boards and of course I said yes because I'm always up for getting something useful for free mainly I wanted them to close in the bottom of my deck but I also wanted them to make the balusters for the front porch railing and then I picked up the best-looking ones for that then cut them all the length the edge of these boards is actually bullnose so the first thing I had to do was rip that off and since each board is five and a half inches wide I could get three bouncers from each piece that are a little over an inch and a half wide originally I was going to cut these on a taper fat on the bottom the thinner at the top but I decided to cut them all straight because I really didn't think that that taper would make them look better after they were all cut they're still pretty wet from being outside so I left them to dry out for a few days next thing I had to do is clean them up and make them smooth and there are two options and I chose sanding rather than running them through my planer I don't think the planer would have been faster and since these boards are used and might still have nails in them or cracks and crevices filled with sand a grit I didn't think was worth the possibility of ruining I said not with this handing out of the way each one had to be primed on all sides and then set out to dry and I did a little sanding smooth out the raised grain and they were ready for the first coat of paint I gave them a few days drive before moving them out to the front where I made some careful measurements for the railings I'm using new framing lumber for the railings mostly two by fours that will span the top and bottom I was very picky when I bought these but it's nearly impossible to avoid a small amount of twists luckily that's easy enough to fix by planing down the high spots before sanding it through the planer to flatten it I could then rip off the edge on each piece and then send those through the planer to smooth out the sockets the way this railing is made is the balusters are attached to thin strips and then those are fastened to the top and bottom rails I'm cutting those strips about a half inch thick for more of the 2x4 and those will get plain smooth as well after that it's back outside for more sanding mostly to ease over the edge on the railing so that they won't be so sharp then you guessed it more priming and more painting I'm not sure but I think by this time it was early October it was getting a bit cooler at night but still really nice out during the day a few more days went by before I got around to the actual installation and I started by cutting the bottom rail to length and fitting it in the fastenings I'm using galvanized nails driven in at an angle I dried them in most of the way with just a hammer then sink the heads below the surface with a quarter inch bolt used as a nail set before moving on I take the time to the seam and fill the nail holes it's a lot easier to reach this now before the balusters are installed I calculated the spacing for the balancers then I cut a block to lay it out on one of the strips and then I could transfer those marks to the other strip the best place to put this together is right on the porch right where it goes so I laid out the balusters with the best face up I then use the shim block the center each balusters on the strip before driving to 2 galvanized nails into each one I did the same on the top then lifted the assembly into place between the post for attaching the bottom I ran a bead of caulking and that will help to glue the strip to the rail and keep water out I use a few nails to secure it down to the bottom rail and then ran another bead of caulking on the outside seam I did exactly the same thing on the top bead of caulking on the strip for setting the rail in place to fasten the top rail once again I'm using galvanized nails driven in at an angle I also added some screws to this after I was done I found that using good quality caulking to seal all the seams will really help to prolong the life of the paint on the exterior woodwork before moving on to the next section now is a good time to fill any nail holes or cracks in the EU's lumber all the other straight sections get assembled and installed exactly the same as the first one the railing for the steps is quite a bit trickier and I started by marking and cutting the angle on the top and bottom rail for these I'm doing it in Reverse I'm starting at the top and fastening that rail solidly to the post before I do anything else with the bottom rail in temporarily the strips are clamped on to find the exact length and angle of the balusters and then set the minor side to that angle and make those cuts just like the straight sections the balusters are nailed to the strips and the spacing matches the rest of the railing for a project like this getting the parts ready to install takes as much time or more than putting it all together there are faster options but of course they are also more expensive besides that I've always done things this way and trying to fabricate as much as I can myself that way if something's not right I only have myself to blame and can usually fix it pretty quickly when you use lower cost or free materials there is the potential for some big savings as long as you are willing to put in the work I didn't cover making the posts with the stair railings in video but I did go over a pretty thoroughly in the website article so if you're interested in more details on that you can find a link to that in the video description I got the other stair railing done and gave the caulking a few days to dry before putting on the second coat of paint and that's basically it I also have railings to make for the back deck but those will be a lot simpler than these anyway as usual I hope you enjoyed it and thanks for watching you

Channel: I Build It Home

Views: 389,994

Rating: 4.8984861 out of 5

Keywords: home improvement, renovation, diy, how to, house, building, cutting, drywall, lumber, framing, painting, windows, doors

Id: bCwY-hm8D54

Length: 13min 14sec (794 seconds)

Published: Wed May 25 2016