The Railing Is Back after 51 Years!

17 February 2022

Based on the word of people who have been in and out of the house over the past 50 + years, there has been no railing on the staircase since Linda Swofford bought the house in 1970. So, I'm happy to say the railing is back!

If you've been following our blog, you might remember that I had got most of the railing done except for the last, complicated section of hand rail at the bottom of the stairs. This small section had to drop down over a short distance, and curve sharply to follow the steps. It took a lot of pondering to figure out how I was going to do this.

I am not a wood carver. I am not a master carpenter. I don't have a high temperature steam chamber with a jig to bend the wood. I do however know how to build with blocks. That's how I decided how to solve this problem.

First, I made the starting block to attach to the lower newel post. Then I secured two short sections of 0 gauge wire to be a guide for the shape and twist that I wanted.

After that, I cut 3/4"" to 1-1/2" long blocks from the handrail we had left, one at a time, changing the angle of my cuts as I went to follow the guide cables, gluing each one in place as I went.

The bottom end is just screwed to the newel post, and the top end I did not glue. This allowed me to remove this section of railing once the glue dried so that we could shape it and sand it.