How to Replace a Stair Railing | This Old House

now before we start installing our new stair parts the first thing I want to do is pass the old holes for the old balusters our new balusters are going to be positioned differently yeah to do that I bought these oak plugs right here they're round 1 inch in diameter about 3/16 of an inch thick and they'll go right over the hole like that now if I take my bit and I try to drill on top of that hole the drill bit would wander to stop it from wandering I put a hole in a block the right size I'll Center it over that hole and now I will drive a guide the bit into that hole like that that's very clever next thing I want to do is I don't want the drill bit to go too deep so I made this gauge block right here I'll put the drill bit through the gauge block put the drill bit on the drill tighten it down and now when I drill through the gauge block my drill bit will stick out at the right depth and line the grain up and tap it in alright we're ready to install your new handrail race now I'm going to reuse the turnout okay first thing I have to do is recut this angle alright now what I've done is I've taken a couple of scrap pieces of wood and I screw them together now that will hold our turnout at the right angle in both directions I don't want it to be tilted this way and I don't want it to be tilted that way another great idea okay so now that's held right on there like that I can't use the old handrail so we have to use a new handrail so I'm going to take it I'm going to lay it right on the nosing of the stairs just like that okay now with my turnout on top of my block I hold it down tight and I simply slide it in until the top of the handrail matches the top of the turnout when they're even I can now transfer this angle to my turnout and I'll cut it on my saw now we're ready to attach the turnout to the handrail they're going to go together just like that to attach them one to the other we're going to use this bolt right here it's a railing bolt on one end is a wood thread on the other end is a machine thread so I can turn this nut right here to tighten the two pieces together now the first thing I need to do is I need to drill a hole on the end of the turnout and the end of the railing and they have to be positioned exactly right okay now that's tight now I have to drill two more holes one more in the end of the railing a little bigger than this hole and another hole on the bottom of the rail and so I can access this nut to tighten it all right now let me show you how these two pieces are going to go together I'm going to slide the machine thread right into the hole just like that now it makes sense to me okay now I have to put the nut and the washer on and tighten it up okay now before I tighten it up I'm going to run some glue on that joint and put two pieces together okay we're almost ready to install our railing but before we do I want to drill holes on the underside of the railing to accept our balusters now what I did first is I located our balusters on our stair tread each one of them using this blue tape so I mark it and I centered it on the wall I divided each balusters up equally over the run and I made sure that the space between the balusters didn't exceed four inches now I have to transfer all of these marks to the handrail to do that I'm going to hold the handrail on top of the stair nosing put my spacer block in here and hold the railing tight against the spacer block now if you can hold down on that railing so it doesn't slide sure I'll transfer the mocks up using my square I'm going to put it on this mock right here and I'm going to transfer that mark right to the side of the railing okay now we've located the holes for the stairs and for the underside of the railing and now we can drill them now I'm ready to drill the holes on the underside of the railing and those holes have to be on an angle so the balusters will be plumb this cut right here is plumb so what I'm going to do is I'm going to use the piece of the railing that I cut off as a guide for my drill bit hold it like that I get my hole started once I get started I bring the drill bit down holding it until it's parallel with the block okay Shelley you want to hand me that handrail there you got it okay now we have the tricky part lay this on here all right Shelley we're all screwed off the top why don't you give that a try okay this is rock solid you

Channel: This Old House

Views: 1,253,408

Rating: 4.7915668 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, Stairs, railing, handrail Do It Yourself, Home Repair, Lifestyle, staircase, balustrade, Tom Silva, installation, steps, tom silva this old house, tom silva house, tom silva construction, tom silva tools, tommy silva, home renovation ideas on a budget

Id: NfR2KIdndPo

Length: 6min 10sec (370 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 20 2014