Adding safety rails to a church railing

I built this back in 2017. This was a big project that took me just over a year.

The original railing was built in the 60’s. It has rails spaced a foot apart which is too far to meet today's safety codes. The previous solution of plastic panels trimmed in wood was worn out. The plastic was clouded & scuffed and a lot of the wood trim was gone. (It looks much better in the photo than in real life!)

A friend of mine approached me while we were looking at these panels. He asked me if I had any ideas about how to clean the plastic scuffs and replace the trim. I told him I would tear the panels out and install wood planks between the rails. It would look so much better. His reply was “That sounds great! Do you know anyone that could do that?” My answer was “Well I could do --- Oh crap.” It was at that point I realized I had just volunteered. Man that guy is good!

 

I spent a lot of time taking measurements of the railing. Finally I had enough to create it in my CAD system. From there I could get the design for the wood inserts worked out. The final design looks good and meets code requirements.

The wood is a lighter colored mahogany called Meranti. The finish is Cognac stain from Varathane. The top coat is water-based polyurethane brushed on.

My lumber is shorter than the length of the longer rails. I’ll use a scarf joint to get material long enough. The scarf angle is set so I can make the cut on my chop saw with my scarf set up (sorry no photos).

The longest rails are 20ft long. This is a bit of a challenge in my 24 ft shop. I spent several months crawling on my hands & knees.

I’m building the rails in 3 phases. The first phase is all the horizontal rails.

One of the boards for the long straight rails has this bizarre filler material - some kind of brittle blueish plastic stuff. You can see a little of it in the bottom of the pockets I routed out.

I make rubbings to transfer the shape.

And cut filler pieces.

I hand file them to fit.

The next phase is all the angled rails except the long ones. I create the angled ends with half lap joints cut on the table saw. I need to create little filler patches for where the half lap didn't cover. You can see the gap that needs the filler piece at the bottom of the joint.

And here’s a view with the patch in place.

The final phase was the long angled rails. These rails were also long enough to require scarf joints. I couldn't use the table saw to create the half lap on these long pieces so I built a jig for the router.

The bottom rail ended up with the most detail. Special treatment is required on both ends. The top needs an extra rail to meet code requirements for minimum space.

The bottom end has a unique half lap joint.

There are a few challenges during installation. The first is getting 20ft pieces transported to the church.

I have a drill guide jig to make sure screw locations are uniform. There is one for the horizontal rails.

And there is another one for the angled rails. This one is on top of the rail in some cases and placed under the rail as shown here. It depends on where there is clearance.

While this took a long time, it is really good to see the end result. And the church has a safe rail that looks good too.