A while ago, I finally completed the handrail to the staircase I had written about in several earlier posts I have been meaning to tell the story, so here it is. Lets tell it in pictures:
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| The handrail awaits its end, which will curve down and around the corner. |
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The original profile my customer found on the internet in the USA.
I worked out the process on a 5 stage machining process. |
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Planning the curve. From above it needs to match the radius of Tread #2's curved nosing.
Over its length it needs to drop the height of one Riser. |
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| Laying out the blocks ready to make the laminations, following the details on the horizontal and vertical axes. |
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| Laminations glued in place, with epoxy resin. |
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| View from above, Cramps doing their job as the glue dries.. |
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| Meanwhile, as the glue dried I made up the jig for shaping the curve. |
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| Cramps off, glue dry. Time to shape the block. |
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| Router jig moves back and forth and around the curve to shape the outside surface radius. |
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| Router jig doing its job beautifully. |
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| Planning the downward curve, by wrapping a piece of hoopiron around from point to point.. |
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| After the sweeping curve was cut out, it was shaped to square in section with a spokeshave. |
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| Beginning the routing process. This is the underside. |
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Power tools can only do so much. Then it is down to good old hand tools.
Here selecting the right radius moulding plane. |
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| The shaping process continues. Getting there... |
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| Planning the joints, top and bottom. |
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| After careful planning and accurate marking out, the bridle joint is cut. |
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| The top joint is progressing well... |
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| A little more fine tuning and we'll be there. |
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| Top joint now glued and cleaned up. |
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| The finishing curve now polished and ready to finalise the bottom joint. |
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| The lower joint involved a steel bolt, epoxied into the wall and into the end of the handrail. |
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| Looking good. |
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| Another view of the completed curve, fitted and fixed. |
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| Job done. |
What a satisfying task this was. It was very tricky, too. Of course, it is the really tricky stuff that I love to do, so after making such a beautiful staircase it was a delight to finally make this final finishing touch to the handrail.
I wonder when I'll get to craft another staircase?...
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| The view up the top flight. |
