Consider custom milled balusters for your porch restoration. Carefully remove an original baluster for replication. The millwork will use this as a model to create a plastic profile. The profile is placed in a copy lathe. A pin follows the profile and adjusts the knife to duplicate the balusters. When finished, the original balustrade will be restored.

Stair railing and balusters are installed. Bob Ryley describes the techniques used and the various checks and balances to make sure the posts are level and center.

Bob and Ryley begin to reassemble the stair rail and balusters. Ryley demonstrates the various fastening and plugging techniques.

House eight of the Elmwood project. The side entrance deck needs more support. An underground sprinkler system is installed and a look at replicating an old railing.

Robert Adam, an instructor at the North Bennet Street School, provides a look inside one of the facility's workshops where several projects are underway. Work in progress includes a new balustrade for the cupola of a local historic home and new mahogany doors for the school's service entrance.

Bob meets Ryley outside the Victorian style house in Massachusetts to help him with the railing. Ryley starts with two by six vertical grain fir for the top railing and routes out a ridge for the balusters and applies standard moulding to the sides. Bob and Ryley head back to the workshop to create the balusters. Ryley traced the pattern from an antique baluster to create the design to create a form. They trace the pattern onto individual pieces of wood and cut out the pattern with a band saw and scroll saw. The meticulous hand cutting is what leads to the beautiful antique pattern. Back out at the site Ryley shows Bob a tip for dealing with the quirkiness of antique wood. He builds a template by scribing the angle on scrap wood then cuts the railing using this form. Bob uses sugar pine for the corner angles.

The Mahogany railings for the elevated rear deck are being constructed, and Bob meets with Kevin Parquette who is doing the final assembly work. The deck features ample room for entertaining and is surrounded by a a simple, easy-to-construct railing. The railing is assembled from readily-available materials, and features decorative rail caps for a finished look. Parquette is using 8-penny stainless steel nails to assemble the railings. The nails are pre-coated with glue. When driven into the wood, the heat generated by the friction of the nail passing through the wood activates the glue, creating a strong and secure fastening system. Layout for the railing is done on the surface of the deck. The vertical balusters are sandwiched between two horizontal rails along the bottom, with a store-bought top rail securing the assembly. Once assembled, the railing sections are simply secured between the four-by-four-inch posts.

Bob visits with Mark Fortunati who is building traditional looking staircase in the foyer. The stringers, which hold the treads and risers, are the backbone of the staircase. Mark has already cut and fit the skirt boards. The skirt boards are basically a continuation of the baseboard that go up the sides of the stairs all the way to the top and must be carefully fitted and cut. That includes putting a dado on the back of each rise and on the back of each riser so that the two are fitted together in a traditional joint. Mark dry fits first before gluing the tread on to the first riser. Once he's sure of the fit he secures it using a good panel adhesive that not only helps it stay together but also prevents squeaking. The outside skirt is cut a bit simpler. There's no rabbeting, but it does have a miter cut on each side of the risers for a tight fit. Not every piece is glued together. The spindles (or balusters) sit in the little holes that receive them and are fit one by one into the bottom of the railing. Because they aren't glued or nailed, they can float or move as needed with expansion and contraction.

House six of the Elmwood project. A final overview of the finished porch project.

Bob goes over plans for the second floor with Greg Rochlin and then joins Ryley as he undertakes the meticulous demolition of a nineteenth century door casing and disassembly of the stairway banister and balusters for refinishing.