Porch stair balustrade
The people at 24 N. Porter built a new porch stair balustrade that did not match the original. As seen below, the rail on the stairs does not match the rail on the porch and it should. The city cited them for it and made plans for them for the rebuild.
Here are the plans the city drew up
Their plans did not really fit the actual dimensions of the porch. My wife and I struggled for a long time trying to figure out the best configuration. We made several full scale mockups.
This is the mockup we finally decided on.
I made the parts and Dan Jensen built the balustrade. I turned the spindles and a finial for the newel.
I took off their 2 X treads and surfaced them to 1 1/4 closer to what an old porch would be. I painted all four sides before installing to reduce cupping. I rounded over the edges and made a treated cove molding to go under each tread.
I made 20 hand cut fancy porch apron parts. That was a huge job. The outside cut could be made three at a time on the bandsaw but the inside cut had to be cut with a hand held scroll saw, one piece at a time. Very tedious and the result is mediocre. The scroll saw does not always go where you want it to.
I pummeled the newel using a side grinder.
Here is the finished porch. The work cost the owner $1600. Dan got $1000 to build the porch and I got paid $600 to make the parts. A GPA grant paid half.
