Handrail Project

[Daniel]

You do very nice work.
I have a few questions if you dont mine.

1-Do you use autocad or the sort of program for the projects?
2-Are the square holes at the bottom strapping punched or plasma cut?
3-And last do you heat the top of the uprights rivets style and pound them? If you do, do you still weld them from underneath?

Again those are beautifull raillings

Thanks
Dan

[Rick C]

Dan
1. I physically go to the job site and measure and make patterns of the project and lay it out on the wall or the floor of the shop. I would take me longer to learn AutoCAD than to do it the old fashion way and it seems to come out right for me. This hand rail fit like a glove the first time no rework just installed it.
2. The holes are punched.
3. Rivets are forged and everything is welded so you can’t see the welds. In other words the welds are on the back side or on the stairway side. I use Pulse mig nice clean weld and lays in real nice hardly any weld splatter to clean up.
Rick Cline

[Daniel]

Thanks.

Love it when everything fits like a glove.
Do you do this for living?

[azmac54]

Hi Rick- that is a really clever and simple idea you came up with! How does the torque multiplier work? Have you ever broke a tooth on the gear?
Jim

[Rick C]

Hand torque multipliers incorporate an ‘epicyclic’ or ‘planetary’ gear train having one or more stages. Each stage of
gearing increases the torque applied by a factor of 5, allowing Norbar to offer multipliers typically in ratios of 5:1, 25:1
and 125:1.
In the planetary gear system, torque is applied to the input gear or ‘sun’ gear.Three or four planet gears whose teeth
are engaged with the sun gear therefore rotate. The outside casing of the multiplier, or ‘annulus’ is also engaged with
the planet gear teeth, and would normally rotate in the opposite direction to the sun gear. A reaction arm prevents
the annulus from rotating, and this causes the planet gears to orbit around the sun. The planet gears are held in a
‘planetary’ carrier which also holds the output square drive. Therefore as the planet gears orbit around the sun gear,
the carrier and so the square drive turns.
Without the reaction arm to keep the annulus stationary, the output square will not apply torque.
No I don’t think I can put enough torque on the rack & pinion to break a tooth it is heavy set up. My multiplier I have is a 4to1 ¾” drive in and 1” out put.

[walker]

It is nice to see how someone else does it. I did one earlier this year that was a bugger, and everything needed to just fit with no problems. I ended up measuring anything I could think of to measure and layed it all out with a chalk line, soapstone and square on the concrete next to my shop ( Where I park my trailers, etc). It worked out great, but I like your method. I had to do a couple of returns into the wall as well as a couple of 3" offsets,and the caprail I was using didn't have any premade fittings, so I had to forge them myself.
It was quite a learning curve. I made a few mistakes when laying it out by measuring the height from the tread at the back, instead of from the nose. When it reached the first one with a landing the height difference made for a strange bend. I refigured what went wrong and redrew it, it was a much cleaner piece. Now I see so many stair rails done with the mistakes that I made in them that were not corrected. I am glad I fixed mine with chalk before I forged/welded them. I have another stair rail/balcony rail job coming up and am much more confident in doing them. I may steal some of your layout ideas too.
Your bender is awesome. I have a hydraulic press that I use for arching pieces like that, but I can see that yours would be much quicker and have better feel to it.