France Midi :: The spiral staircase railing part 2: How I managed to understand the geometry of the handrail

Previous:	The spiral staircase railing part 1: How I started to build a handrail for the old staircase
Next:	The spiral staircase handrail part 3: How I imagined the way to do the work

The spiral staircase railing part 2: How I managed to understand the geometry of the handrail

by Jan on Thu 27 Nov 2008 07:36 PM CET | Permanent Link | Cosmos

My biggest problem was how to cut out the three-dimensional form of the handrail from a block of wood. I needed a form of some kind. My wife suggested I should use some soft material to practice on. I asked around a little and found out that there was a kind of poly-urethane sheet that was used for insulation that was firm but still easy to cut. They came in 50 mm thick large sheets. I started to cut the segments of the handrail in this material. I found out that for making some pieces I had to glue two sheets together to get a thicker piece.

In the beginning I made the handrail exactly as it should be in this material that taught me a lot about the geometry. After working for an hour with the material however I got a sore throat. I thought it was the dust from the material that irritated my throat and put my vacuum cleaner close to the place there I cut the material. I found however out that it did not help entirely and came to the conclusion that it was the gas contained in the material that came out when I cut it, that irritated my throat. After that I used a mask with filer and was all right.

This exercise with the polyurethane thought me that the important thing was to get the lower surface formed after the railing’s top iron bar. If I could do that properly, the rest would come out in, not an easy, but at least easier way. Until now I had put the handrail together of short pieces of material, which was not the way I would do it in wood off cause. So, from no on I put together blocks of Poly urethane in a size as close to the wooden blocks I would use later as possible. They were approximately 100 mm thick, 300 mm wide and 300-900 mm long.

I now only cut out the lower surface as that was the tricky part. In that way I also got a form that made it possible for me to measure how I should place the three dimensional railing into the block. The tricky thing was to place the block in such an angle that the profile of the handrail would fit into the thickness of 100 mm.

This exercise made it possible for me to estimate how much and what dimension of wood I would need. My friend who is an expert on such things came with me to his timber dealer in Séte and he also helped me to estimate how many planks and of what dimension I would need. I was surprised when I saw how much wood we had to buy. It was abut 0,4 cubic meters of planks. I had given him a list of the pieces I needed and he took it to his workshop, cut it and glued it together using his big press.

After a few days I stood there with quite a big pile of very heavy blocks of wood that I was supposed to form into an elegant wooden handrail.

Posted to:

Main Page