Install A Newel Post, Handrail, and Balusters

[Music] we are ready to start our new project which is going to be these steps these are going to go in a split foyer typical walk in the front door to a landing and up six or seven to this top floor or down six or seven to the basement level so uh what we have on the project now is the 36 inches of steps with a wall that comes up typical with a piece of wood cap on top the open tread here which it's gonna make a huge difference because the steps just grew by essentially six inches we're gonna set the newel post cut the handrail leave it long at the top install all the pickets then we're going to take everything apart hand sand it pre-finish it take it to the job site remove the old steps and slide these in but first what i have to do is get these things set up the way they're going to be on the job and that's going to be number one is me double checking the measurements of the steps with what i provided to the stair manufacturer to make sure that these steps are going to fit in my customer's house before i go through all this work a lot of different things to consider and uh we don't want to mess around we want to get it right the first time so this is going to be fun stick around you see i've got the uh i've got this thing set up shimmed first step is level we're level at the top and our tread is level this way and uh the run which is where the steps start where they stop seems to be spot on when this is installed this rosette will be up here and of course this rosette has to be center line of the pickets center line of the post but still be able to fit on the wall that is in place in the house now a lot of different measurements that um we need to double check and make sure that we can overcome any obstacles before we start drilling last thing you want to do is take a couple thousand dollar set of steps and start drilling holes in the wrong place make for an ugly day sorry about that good people my battery died anyway like i'm saying um that's going to dictate where i can set this post because uh the center line that rosette wants to come down the steps and be centered on this post so we are going to figure out where we're going to put that and that's going to dictate these pickets which will dictate where that post goes okay let me explain this uh picket layout real quick hopefully it makes sense when you land these pickets out you want to ignore this tread it doesn't mean a thing what does mean a thing is the run from here to where the next one starts and from here to where the next one starts and if you measure these these are nine inches excluding the tread forget about the tread so if you add one two three four five six forget that top one because it's gonna be cut all right add them up and then divide by two pickets per step we end up with four and a half inches on center code in most i guess most everywhere across this country is four inch max and when kids get the head stuck in there things like that but the pickets we're using are half inch steel so that ends up exactly four inches on center front of the skirt board to where the next stair starts up here divide it in half and then we go two and a quarter two and a quarter here's our half inch for our picket half inch for our picker here it might look funny but when we come and do the same thing on this step you take this number plus this number where this one starts and you repeat that four inches all the way up steps again we're going to ignore these they don't matter then we get down to the bottom we need to know how far to set this post into the step so again for it to be legal [Music] when this picket comes up and you measure across to this post it can't exceed four inches so this post is four inches here and it jumps to five and a half down here so if this were to be a picket that's the layout okay so we're gonna jump three quarters past that or one inch on center because of the fat part of this post so it will be closer than four at the bottom but when it gets up here it will it will be four inches again i hope that makes sense um if you're doing this at home triple check take your time during the layout because um you mess up with this stuff it can get expensive quick but um i figured this would be a good way to illustrate this because we're going to put the whole thing together here in the shop then take it apart pre-finish it take it to the job site and install it but um to give you a real clear view of uh how we put these things together so now we're gonna um lay out the center line on the steps the center line of this post and the center line of that rosette up there and then we should be really close to ready to uh determine in the length or the height of the north post and uh how much we need to notch out the bottom and so let's get going with that okay so i think we made some progress on our layout let me show you what we got uh the post is positioned and plumbed like i said before so that when this picket comes up when it gets to this point up in here that's where the four inches will be so it'll be a little tighter at the bottom but in order to keep that rosette at the top in the area of the wall where it needs to be we're going to cut the post an inch and a half then across so the post is proud of this stair nose okay and so once we do that then we of course we'll have to cut the front off as well okay and it'll sit right here and once we do that that will bring the center line of these pickets in uh about an inch and three eighths um which would be fine work real good so we're gonna have to take the corner out of this post but first we got to figure out the length and that's why i got this handrail here the handrail needs to be between 34 and 36 inches to the top uh so we're gonna shoot for 35 and obviously when that handrail comes down here at an angle we wanted to land center of this this square so what we're going to do is use this because when you measure that 34 to 36 inch it's from the it's from the front of the nose straight up and then wherever that handrail is it needs to fall into that 34 to 36 inch um measurement so what we're going to do is we're going to measure up from here 34 inches and then we're going to see how much we need to cut off the bottom to bring the top of that rail 34 inches and in the center of this little box so let me get that laid out and i'll show you how we need to how much we need to cut off okay here we go on this blue tape we have marked the center of this box okay [Music] if you look at this handrail when it's cut at the angle of these steps it will be just a hair shot i mean uh proud it's hard to see of three inches all right so we'll call it a three and an eighth so let's divide that in half one half here one half there and that leaves an equal space below the rail and above the rail so when the rails cut at that angle and comes into this post it's going to take up this much room so we want that to be center showing the same amount on the top and the same amount on the bottom so if i measure this as it is right now and i'll put it right there i got that shim to keep me flush at the bottom of that rail which represents it's representing the edge of the tread and i come out at 35 inches okay you can see that that is right about where that piece of cove mold is milled onto that trim and so if i [Music] want this to be at 35 the difference between this and that is what has to come off so that's about that's about four and a half inches i hope that makes sense let's get a little complicated that's why i like to put all this stuff together i don't i don't i've done a mini a stairway but i don't do them every day so um i'd rather take a little extra time make sure that i got it right because i don't want to be cutting all this stuff up making firewood out of it so let me get this thing laid off and we'll figure out how we're going to cut [Music] it ah you heard that didn't you damn mail all right we got to roll this over see if we can find another way to attack this all right i worked my way around that without without getting it too bad you see that and of course this is exactly where you need to cut it anyway i don't think we heard nothing with the saw and uh we'll put this back on the steps and see if we're somewhere close to what we need to be we got our post set back in place plant so it doesn't fall down hit me in the head check this to see how good we got it so again this shim being tight against the bottom of this rail is uh representing the edge of these nosings and so if we go straight up we want to have 35 inches drop that right there and there you see my pencil mark and 35. so the post is good we got the length where we want it i got a shim under there that's just help holding it uh level plumb rather so the next thing we're going to do is lay the bottom of the post off and we're going to cut the front the top and the other side and uh that'll be a bit tricky because it's going to cap over top of the let's go to cap over top of the step here then we'll have to cut the nose in here cut the nosing there so the post will come back tight to it okay i got the you see here's the the rail side so down here i got an inch and a half marked here's the top of the stair tread this is the front of the stairs two inches marked there so let's go ahead and we're gonna cut this this notch out first [Music] cut number one we'll go across the top and then we'll roll this everything put some blue tape down and hit that with a scale saw because i got a nice new trim blade in there [Music] all right that's what we're left with so next thing we're going to do is remove this handrail cut the nosing off this first step and see how this thing goes together okay i got the uh stair nose marked so if we come two inches off the front back five and a half we're there inch and a half off the side back five and a half for this more like 5 and 7 16 so i'm going to leave the line but this this split is right flush with the skirt board so you can see that's an inch and a half there and so let me get a little saw and get to get cranking on this all right now we're going to take a chisel score that and very carefully chisel it out julian here today chilly outside today okay so like with a little bit of finesse with a block plane and a super sharp chisel our post fits super duper nice at the steps it's got to come down just a little bit kill that crack right there so we'll take care of that and then the next thing we're going to do is fashion this post to the bottom of the steps when we get to the job site we'll screw into the framing members at the bottom boom right down through here and here's the bottom of the post that i cut off so it will slip over top onto that block all right just a little bit more tuning on that you see our poster square to the tread and i think that is way acceptable and here's our cut off so you can see if i put this on the marks we just made i can get some dimensions off of that step to cut this okay we got this just ran through the table saw and not stuck here's what we started with so just cut this block to fit the steps based on the offsets of this post see down in there and line up like so you can see our pencil marks so let's check and make sure our poster slides in there the way it's supposed to because we don't want no trouble when we get this thing on the job we just won't be able to slide that post down and move on there you go that ain't too shabby check this out that looks pretty good we'll drill some pilots in here and glue and screw that down and uh that will secure it to the step as well and so all the grandkids in the world be swinging off of that post and then they're gonna go nowhere okay i got the remainder of the block in place and i just put a couple pieces of scrap clamped in there so will help me keep this aligned so when i screw it to the step it'll be where it's supposed to be [Music] [Music] okay what we're going to do now is lay these pickets out and i'll show you what i did i built the simple jig with the layoff that we got earlier right here and i made it big enough for my scratch all to drop through so as long as you're tight to the nose back to the rise drop that scratch off through there tap it a couple times and then you got a hole to start your foster bit and we go all the way down each one of them of course the first one first step we have to lay out by hand but um and then you know that each and every one of them are exactly the same if i put this here just so you can see put that scratch all there so we can uh judge it but you can see we're on this one and we're at four and a half on that exactly the same all the way up i'll probably just cut this board off right there to punch that last one because i won't use the board for nothing else anyway so uh we're almost ready to cut the angle on the handrail and i want to show you how we transfer these marks to the handrail okay our next chore is going to be to mark the angle on this hand handrail and you just need to be sure that it's hitting all the way up i got a clamp up there to hold it and i'm just going to take a pencil mark beside this post we're gonna have to remember make this handrail three quarters of an inch longer because the offset from here to this plane where it's gonna be bolted is three quarters okay we got our cut made it looks pretty good to me the only thing you want to make sure is that thing is sitting absolutely uh square and level in your chop saw and uh you should be good to go so the next thing we're going to do is remove that post um set this handrail so it lines up with this part of the post and we're going to transfer these marks that we put with scratch off onto the hand rail so we know where to drill holes for the pickets you can see i have the hand rail in plane with the outside of this block because that's where the top half of this post that's what it's in playing with and then i have it clamped to the steps making sure that it's tight to the nose and so now it's just a matter i won't use this square obviously but now it's just a matter of taking square and we'll mark it right here transfer the mark to the bottom side of the rail and we will know where to drill them so here we just center this little square on our hole looking straight on at it and we put a little mark there i see that a reference kind of hard to see but a reference where our picket holes are going to be so we'll go right on down the steps and do all of them i'm going to roll it over and drill it okay we're going to cut it off here rough length finish cut that on the job site and then we're going to get in through here and mark the centers of our pickets and you can see this handrail it has a divot in it that marks the middle of the bottom so let's do that and then we'll get ready to drill some holes so in order to drill these holes i'm going to use the paddle bed a three-quarter inch paddle bit but you need to check your spindles make sure that uh you got a little bit of play room in there and we're going to start this also the rail is upside down and bottom up on the steps so this is the actual piece that part that goes to the uh new post and so we're just going to get a drop above the drill start it on our mark just go slow and i'm actually starting to stand the drill up as we get our little pilot going in there and i'm gonna stand it up straight plumb you're obviously gonna need somebody to help hold this [Applause] i'm gonna go about an inch and an eighth in there this hole needs to be deep enough that we can take the picket slide it up into the rail and drop it down into the step anyway that's how we do that so we're going to take this uh 3 8 bit and we're going to bore it in there we need to go two inches here plus the inch uh where this bolt goes and uh plus some slack behind that for about three quarters so let me get my drill set up and we're gonna make a hole [Music] so anyway um we have a template here it's got a fold line and then it's got the center line of a one-inch hole which is going to allow us access to drop this bolt in there i mean this uh this nut and uh then once the whole thing's assembled on the job site uh we'll cover it with a pre-stained one-inch oak plug [Music] see if i can give you a clearer example of how this works this is the nut that goes into the hole you see one side is rounded so you put that into the hole then there is a place for this driver and then you can imagine this this lag goes into the new post and this threaded into the bolt goes into this nut and if you turn that clockwise it starts turning the nut onto the threaded bolt and then you see as you're tightening that it would be pulling the new post snug to this handrail imagine this is the newer post see that would have that would be you see that would be lagged into the north post all the way to the point where this end of this lag is pretty much flush and as you tighten that you can see this goes further and further in tighten the door post and all my years of doing this work i've never seen a better way of attaching that and it's just gonna be very careful about your drilling make sure you accurate but we'll see this all together you'll like it bolt coming off of the handrail 90 degrees to that angle so uh as long as you get your you're pretty accurate with your drilling this will work like a charm and then when we look down here with a little cam thing is we'll make sure that the hole is drilled past this cam hole far enough that when you go to tighten this up that bolt has some place to go it's going to travel through this one inch hole and back about this far so you just want to make sure that you have enough room for that and you're gonna love it 2021 now it's uh new year's morning i slept through it as usual me at least never celebrated it anyway let's do a recap we got our hand rail all the picket holes drilled we got the bolt hole drilled in the end next we're going to take this new post where i marked it and we're gonna put the uh lag bolt into it then we're gonna attach it to the bottom of the steps again and drive the screws into it so it's stout we're going to attach the handrail to it and then i'll rig up a 2x4 or something up here to hold the top of the handrail then i'm going to use my frame square and i'll show you how we make sure that the distance um between the nosing and the bottom of the handrail stays the same all the way up and down the steps and then we're going to cut them steel pickets off and put them in place so let me gear up for that and uh oh yeah i got me a cool coffee cup at the woodcraft store the other day pretty old school looking but um it's kind of light i'm used to a heavy mug it says a couple times i'm going to throw it over my shoulder anyway i'll be right back at you so i'm going to drill the holes in these steps for the pickets to start with and i'm gonna try to make them all pretty consistent so i got a piece of tape down here at three quarters and uh just folded the end over so it's a little rigid and when you're drilling a hole into this when this tape starts brushing away the waist then you know your your desired depth say that that means we're good you know before i go drilling all the holes and that's nice this is going to get a shoe on it um plus these will get set in epoxy so let's go ahead we'll drill out the rest of these holes next we're going to drill a hole and install this lag in it and you see it's it's hinged so it will go into that rail [Music] and pretty much whatever angle that rail ends up that's pretty cool this is a solid post at the top so uh so i'm gonna grab some vice grips i could probably screw it in like that but i don't want to stress these these little hinge pieces so i'm gonna rub a little soap on there make it a little easier get some vice grips and run that thing home one thing that's critical is that your handrail stay parallel to the steps i've got a straight edge here just a six foot level and i'm gonna lay it in the steps [Music] okay and make sure that it's touching all the noses and i'm gonna take a simple framing square and i'm going to lay on there [Music] and then i can pick up this measurement right up top which looks 22-8 you see so anywhere along this level and again at the top or i can flip it around here and get it all the way up there because that matter that measurement is critical you don't want your posts be the pickets being all different lengths that's the way i've always done it i'm pretty sure there's probably other ways see one more thing you want to double check at this point before we go cutting all them pickets is that we fall within the code requirements of i'm pretty sure it's 34 to 36 and i think that's pretty much everywhere so if i put this stick rule i'll just eyeball it plumb and i go up to the top of the handrail i'm right at 35 inches and like i say the code requires somewhere between 34 and 36 so i try to shoot in the middle in case i mess up um so that's where we are now next one was cut these pickets all right we got our pickets installed let me see what i can tell you about this they look pretty dead going cool though i think i'm liking it the hole into the handrail is about an inch and three quarters deep so i'm using a stick rule and i'll put this end of the stick rule up into the hole until i got an inch and a half of picket in that hole and then i'll select the set this adjustment at the bottom of my stick rule that's 31 and i got 5 and 3 8 down here so that picket needs to be 36 3 8. and what that's going to allow you to do is once all this is the post and the rail is assembled it's going to allow you to stick pick it up into the hand rail it will just clear the step and drop down into the hole we have a bottom shoe and a top shoe you want to make sure those shoes are on your picket before you glue it in place so what i would do is just tighten the set screw let them hang put to pick it into place after you've epoxied it and then you got the shoe at the bottom which gets a nice clean finished look and you got this shoe at the top now obviously you want your um obviously you want your epoxy to set up before you try to glue because you don't want to be pushing them back and forth and then i'm going to um check some of your measurements we're good here we're just short of four inches there [Music] you can see on the underside of the handrail or our stained filler plug will go [Music] so that's that's pretty nice looking setup if you ask me what says you what do you say about it look i hope i've explained all this well enough but there you go it's pretty cool looking i think i have done all i need to do except for one little thing which is not a big deal i'll show you that in a second but i wanted to give you a shot of what this looks like all together and i set the shoes on the bottom so you can see what they look like pretty cool and it also has a shoe for the top i think i showed you earlier in the video so um next thing i'm going to do is take these apart and start sanding and finishing them put a first coat of paint on them and uh think of all i think all the mess my homeowner won't have to go through because i'm doing that here in the shop anyway if you stuck with me i appreciate it we are going to do a video on the install which is always fun when you get to show up at a homeowner's house and take a salsa and cut the steps out of the opening but uh so if you want to see what these look like installed look for that and um if you're a new subscriber we appreciate love and support if you ain't we hope you might consider subscribing and as always i appreciate you guys watching sticking with me so god bless and we'll see you on the next one

Channel: Billy & Lisa's Remodeling How-To Channel

Views: 23,422

Rating: 4.8888888 out of 5

Keywords: Trim a staircase, Install a newel post, Install stairway handrail, Install steel balusters, Install handrail bolts

Id: xb336u3tkuw

Length: 42min 26sec (2546 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 02 2021