Newel Post Makeover (Staircase Renovation Episode 2)

[Music] hi I'm Scott I design build and repair woodworking pieces I'm opening up the doors to my shop to help you become a better woodworker [Music] my wife and I decided to renovate her staircase we had golden oak handrails and spindles and really worn out carpet we've decided to close in the stair stringers beefed-up the newel posts add some wainscoting and paint it all out to give it a more traditional look this renovation is going to take a few episodes so please stay tuned I started off doing the new oppos work and having a little bit of fun if you've seen Christmas vacation you'll understand my reference here my best Chevy Chase impression we don't like our golden old new posts we went out and shopped and looked at furtive options but we realized how expensive it was to replace them all they were strong and sturdy so we decided to wrap material around the existing posts instead the cost of the birch in trim to cover the seven newel posts was the same cost as buying a larger newel post so this was the affordable solution now let's head out to the wood shop and get started I've decided to build these boxes with mitered corners that way concealing off the joints but before I can do that I need to make sure my table saw set up accurately and that those 45-degree corners I'm going to work when I glue them up now with all my test pieces cut what I'm gonna do is put them together and see how well they fit so this is just a dry fit I'm not going to glue it at all and the best tool for this is a strap clamp and what that does is it applies even pressure across all four pieces and it allows you to get those corners nice and tight if you try and use just regular clamps you'll squeeze one side more than another and get your joints out of alignment this just sort of takes it off takes all the guesswork out of it so there is dry fit and I've got this one piece out of place let's try that again so there you can see how take the joints are and that means I've got my lighter set perfectly on that table saw and here's a full little post glued up and strapped tight I've now got the new newel posts installed and I've temporarily put the old railing back on just for safety purposes during this renovation so this new newel post is that box I was showing in the workshop just a column it's a 4 inch by 4 inch column on the base I have put 3/4 inch material to give me a 5 and 1/2 inch base and the column just slid over top of the existing newel post here's a view of the new a post from the top what I've got is the existing newel post in the center and in the box that I built around it for the new new post now because I have an existing stairwell and I needed to align these I ended up having a plane a few of these pieces before I assemble the boxes to get them to align properly to dress this up I've got a few more pieces to add this is Cove molding so this goes on the base here I've also got a new low cap and I purchased these pre-made meant for a 4 inch post and then to dress up this flat area here I've got astragal molding that will go somewhere around here just to dress up that flat edge so once I get this all sanded primed and painted it'll give us a nice crisp look and more of that traditional feel that we're looking for the caps are made of two different pieces one is this top here which is a raised panel design and the bottom is a cold mold which gives me this overhang so it's just a matter of putting these on top to finish off the top piece and then give me a measurement down to the astragal mold and I'll finish it off by putting on the cold mold I now have a lot of astragal molding I need to cut I have seven new posts and four pieces in each new post that's 28 pieces I like to set up repeatable processes so if I set up a stop block here and cut the pieces exactly the same I know I'm going to get consistent results what I do is start by measuring and overestimating the amount that I need and set my a saw at 45 degrees then what I do is line up my stop block to roughly that cut and I'll go through and I'll make all these cuts on all the parts that gives me excess and gives me one mitre then what I need to do is reset that stop block come back and cut the other mitre and that'll give me 28 pieces exactly the same [Music] I've attached a new post cap here and I've measured down where I think is the appropriate distance to give a nice look here a balance between the top and bottom section then I bring in the astrodome molding which is here and I try on two pieces on the corner first to check for the length of my trim then when I put the third one on I can see if I am too long or too short always making sure I've got a tight and joint to start here it gives me a good frame of reference I'm happy with the fit of the first two pieces so I'm going to install them and what I do is put a bit of glue right in the middle of the trim and all the way across it allow for some expansion hold that in place and get it on that line line up my second piece here so I've got a nice fitting joint that I that way I know what's in the right position and once I've got it on that line i brad nailer so with the first one in had a dab of glue at the joint and to the edge hold it in place while my other end [Music] and then a little place so I've got two nails in it here so I know these are fixed points it just allows me now to work through getting these joints right so that one I'm happy with but this one is too long so we just need to trim that one and then come back and finish it off with the last piece fit just a little dab of glue and here I'm going to line up this joint to where I want it up to the line I just nail it on the back end so this is still moving and I'll put a little bit of blue on this end and line up these pieces I missed a bit of glue the reason I glue the igniters is just to give them a little extra holding power to encourage them to stay together [Music] [Music] the Copa holding at the bottom was a lot easier to attach because it's already got a shelf so it's just a matter of putting on the glue setting it in place and then once I've got all these in place it's just a matter of tweaking it and an alien in place so just usually put these on here and then the key part here is looking at it from above because that's the way you're going to see it just to make sure all those joints are lined up properly and then once you're happy with them it's just a matter of nailing them on now if you don't have a brad nailer the best thing to do is pre-drill hole and then drive you're finishing now to prevent the wood from splitting [Music] if you'd like to remodel some new post here's some keys to success use a stop block to make repeatable cuts use strap clamps to glue up mitered posts instead of traditional clamps lay out an astragal trim with a square and pencil to make sure it's level glue miter joints on trim to keep them secure and pre-drill holes if nailing trim on by hand to prevent splitting small pieces of wood the middle posts are now all ready for priming I filled the nail holes and I've broken all the edges so they're nice and smooth and we're almost halfway through this project so we've still got a few more things to do we have railings and pickets to install we have a lot of painting to do with wainscoting and all these new posts so please stick with us if you'd like to see notifications of when the next videos come out please subscribe in the meantime enjoy your time the workshop in the next episode will cover off how we used an HVLP sprayer to quickly finish out the spindles new oppos and wainscoting we'll also cover the staining process we use for the handrail this is all in preparation for the final episode where we'll show you the installation of the handrail and it before and after photos so stay with us [Music]

Channel: Home Improvement Woodworking

Views: 237,307

Rating: 4.6777253 out of 5

Keywords: newel, newel post, newel post remodel, newel post replacement, build a newel post, newel post cap, stair, staircase, staircase renovation, how to, woodworking, home improvement, renovation, remodel

Id: npflGAuaSzQ

Length: 12min 26sec (746 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 11 2017