I want to purchase a hardwood top to my staircase rails. I think it is called a balustrade? (The rounded top of the stairs that you slid down when you were a child).The stairs have two rails made of about 6"x1" going down the stair angle. I would like to top them with a nice polished hardwood.
Can anybody confirm I am using the correct terminology and tell me where I can buy such thing?
Using inches is not correct terminology.
Do you mean that you want to put trim pieces on the rails or are you looking to get a handrail for the top?
In any event, the best solution would be to go to a joinery firm, select the profile that you want and ask them to run the lengths you need on the spindle moulder.
Other than that, you could look at the web site of Richard Burbidge who manufacture a range of handrail mouldings. However apart from a few oak ones they specify their hardwood as "dark" without mentioning the actual species.
Many thanks. Looked at Burbridge site. I need a 'handrail' Will have a look round the sheds. I need 4200mm one. Bit long for the car?
On Fri, 29 Jun 2007 08:41:30 -0700, Merryterry mused:
Er, should we know how long your car is?
Merryterry ( snipped-for-privacy@fsmail.net) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :
Self tappers for the bracket into the bodywork should allow it to be fitted to the car solidly enough, and 4200mm shouldn't stick past either end of the car too badly, depending on what sort of car it is. You'll find that it may make opening the car doors tricky, though. Still, a quick peruse of any "Dukes of Hazzard" episode will suggest a strategy to allow you to deal with that.
You'll probably find a stain that's a close enough match to the paintwork, but metallic may be more difficult.
I'm not sure the MOT man will be too thrilled, though.
Handrail, and most timber merchants. As a "one off" you could form one on a router in a table. but the cutters would cost more than the rail ready made if you don't already have them!
I've made one to match an existing design using a spindle moulder. The cutters were a couple of pieces of gauge plate, ground by hand until they fitted the original handrail.
Colin Bignell
How many of us have a spindle moulder kicking about I wonder.
You wouldn't really manage to kick a couple of hundred kilos about. These are substantially heavy machines.
Having said that, getting short run tooling made (e.g. cutters and limiters for universal blocks) is quite inexpensive even if ordered through a joinery firm. Then one can have interesting rather than the usual boring profiles.
Exactly. And a moulding machine of the type used to produce handrails in one pass, several times heavier again.
How many variations can there be for a handrail? The "usual boring profiles" have normally evolved for good practical reasons.
That depends. If it was a machine set up to do volume production runs of rails then probably. Equally, one wouldn't probably use universal blocks and profile cutters for them for volume either.
However, a smaller machine, used for general joinery and with suitable infeed and outfeed support can do small runs easily.
There are literally tens of them in different sizes and shapes.
I can pick the Kity one I used up with one hand, although it is more usually bolted onto a table with a circular saw and a thickness planer.
Colin Bignell
One does need stability with a spindle moulder for quality of cut in addition to the obvious safety issues.
Which is why it is usually bolted down.
Colin Bignell
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