Deck Post ,fascia Mount Possible?

[Kbird1]

Thx for the info Scott , I'll try and find that video too , it'll be nice not to have to tell client's my software can't "draw" the rails how I'm really going to build them , if I can sort this out.

M.

[rlackore]

adding an extra 3 1/2" layer (Post width) only seems to make the top and bottom Rails wider

 

Deck Railing Specification dbx > Rails > uncheck Automatic Width 

[glennw]

rlackore has it right.

Uncheck Automatic Width and manually set the railing width for the top rail and the bottom rail.

Start with a Straight Deck Railing. 

Main layer is layer 2 - the original wall layer.

[glennw]

Mick,

 

Why don't you do what you can and then post the plan which I will be able to open in X6.

[Kbird1]

Thanks Glenn , things went better today   , I had tried making a "template" of all my default settings in a plan and I think it was screwing things up yesterday somehow so deleted it, and went back to the Standard profile.plan today to start and things went better ....

 

The Railing width wasn't an issue, easy fix as mentioned , it just happened to be the only "thing" I saw different yest. after trying different settings.

 

Once I figured out how the wall layers were working and their widths it went ok , didn't get to the 2 post Corner tonight but so far not too bad.  May be how my wall thickness are set as I see "shimmering" in the rim joist materials between Rustic Alder and the PT Wood, so tried changing some rim joists to white which seemed to help.

 

I found I didn't need to change the wall type back to normal once the other settings were done , in a cross section view I could click on the railing which gave me a height measurement ,which was editable , I just clicked on it , didn't alter anything, and hit enter and the railing dropped down to the bottom of the Rim Joist.

 

What's the best way to "save" these settings in X5 for reuse ?  possible?  

 

 

thanks for taking a look , appreciate it.

 

Mick.

 

Fascia Mount Deck Railing_X5.zip

 

 

[glennw]

Mick,

 

All looks good so far.

One caveat - v5 may do things differently than v6.

If it were me, I would get rid of those zero thickness wall layers unless there is a special reason for them.

Now create a very thin wall (3/32") and make it No Room Def and give it the Opening (no Material) material, make it invisible. 

Draw them in the corner as shown in the pic below - but keep them a bit away from the corners at this stage - you can move them closer to the corners later..

Then use the Break Wall tool and break the main railing at the wall junctions.

You can drag the very thin walls and the break in the main railing will follow the walls as you drag them. 

Select the corner rail sections and make them Open, no bottom rail,

 

The only problem I am now having with your drawing is getting full posts closest to the corners, Chief only wants to do half posts.

I need to have another play - I forgot what I did to get the full posts.

 

[Kbird1]

Thanks Glenn , I changed the wall thicknesses around to try and stop the "shimmering" on the Rim joist, but something weird is going on, when I opened the plan this morning ,and opened the saved Cross section on the back deck everything had moved over ,and back into the deck , and left the Cad lines and boxes I had done a test detailing with behind , so you maybe right about using zero width walls.  I had changed some of the wall thickness around to make the wall lines disappear in the section view ,but they were back as well.

 

Maybe my GTX275 on the Office Comp. is causing the "shimmering" but I see the white bleeding from/into the Rim joist at the edge of the deck at what looks like the wall thickness line. Does it show for you? not sure if its CA or my comp . on this aspect.

 

Could you post a pic of your Deck Railing>Wall types >Define DBX please , i'd like to try your Settings.  Thx.

[Kbird1]

Breaking the Railing wall with the new invisible wall went fine , once I figured out I needed to place the new walls about 10"-12" from the corner to avoid the thickness of the "Invisible layers" of the new railing, otherwise the Wall Break Tool wouldn't work.

 

The Posts on the end are generating automatically for me, maybe half post is turned on in your copy of plan? I usually spec them as that is how I build them (stronger) , but I can't find the right setting to get rid of the post in the Corner  , so have a wonderful 3 post design at present

 

want to say Thanks again , for spending some time on this for me......

 

 

[glennw]

Mick,

 

I don't get the shimmering, but what you describe is Z fighting which occurs when you get 2 materials sharing the same plane.

 

Wall dbx attached.

[Kbird1]

Ok got the third post figured , I set the Newel width to 0" on both short walls and the Baluster width to 0" too (1/16th auto set) 

 

might have found your no post problem , if I move the post close to the corner ( as in real life 2 1/2" set back)  they disappear....

 

M.

 

 

 

Edit : it seems I need to have both walls 7.5 " from the corner for both posts to generate , which I think coincides with the thickness of the "real wall"

 

.

[Kbird1]

Tried your settings Glenn, using 2 wall layers instead of 3 and now I need the posts 9.5 inches from the corner or they disappear  ( 3" main layer and 6.5 inch secondary).  Any idea how how the layers relate to how close we can get to the corner ?   I think I had 3" main layer and 3" sec. and a 3rd layer at 4" previously for the 7.5" setback distance.

 

M.

[Kbird1]

The disappearing post issue , I couldn't solve but I think the 7 1/2" earlier and the now "required"  9 5/8" are due to how/where I was measuring earlier , this technique is fairly easy once you have played with it a bit , but I may need to just leave the two post corner ( except for Client "Pics" )  out since the 7 1/2" gap is nearly double the Code reqd. measurement for anything City related.

 

I made a small 12x12 deck , keep the standard single post at the corners , then turned the Deck into a symbol and dropped it back into the plan if anyone wants to look , or have a "play" with this technique. (Done in X5 , other techniques in X6 perhaps?)

 

M.

 

 

Fascia Mount Railing Symbol Plan.plan

 

[rlackore]

It shouldn't be this difficult, should it.

[Kbird1]

I agree , especially since I don't know when the last time was anyone built a hand rail directly over the Rim Joist was ( you cant notch posts) , you can offset the newels , so why you can't just offset the whole rail and/or place it as any other wall ?, I am unsure why they lock it to the Rim. It is the same with the rail on the stairs if you happen to drag it 1" off the stairs  it builds horizontal instead of following the stair... once again the Newel is mounted to the outside of the stringers ,but the rail wont build if not on top of the stringer ( same as Rim joist problem).

 

 

M.

[CJSpud]

I wonder why I can't see any of Glenn's attachments when reviewing this thread via a link from a newer thread???  Any ideas anyone?  Maybe Glenn takes them to bed with him.

[glennw]

Curt,

 

I was doing some housekeeping and deleted all my pictures.

Which, in hindsight, was probably a mistake.

 

You will just have to use your imagination!

[Kbird1]

although the upload limit per post is now 25mb instead of 10mb I think the total per user is/was 50mb so if you post plans or symbols you may run out of space , I did on the HomeTalk Forum and had to delete a number of my pics and files before I could attach pics to new posts,not really a good policy since the Forums are a reference source and a pic says a 1000 words...

.

 

M.

[adventhomes]

I just called support to try to find out how to extend a deck railing post (newel) base so that it can be fascia mounted without having to basically spend hours piecing a railing design together post by post, etc. I was told that as CA are based in Idaho then it us based on meeting their code and not the Canadian code that we must follow in BC.  I was also told that nobody has ever requested this functionality of support so it has never been a priority.

I guess I'll have a bunch of notes on our construction drawings and permit application stressing that the real details of the post detail are actually like this & then show a CAD image of what one post should really look like.

 

Also can't figure out how to have a bottom rail on a stair railing as well as a newel post midway down the star rather than a 12' run with no newel post ... and I know that's not just something we do in Canada ;-)

 

FYI I am on X7 ... the latest and not so greatest.

[DRAWZILLA]

I just called support to try to find out how to extend a deck railing post (newel) base so that it can be fascia mounted without having to basically spend hours piecing a railing design together post by post, etc. I was told that as CA are based in Idaho then it us based on meeting their code and not the Canadian code that we must follow in BC.  I was also told that nobody has ever requested this functionality of support so it has never been a priority.

I guess I'll have a bunch of notes on our construction drawings and permit application stressing that the real details of the post detail are actually like this & then show a CAD image of what one post should really look like.

 

Also can't figure out how to have a bottom rail on a stair railing as well as a newel post midway down the star rather than a 12' run with no newel post ... and I know that's not just something we do in Canada ;-)

 

FYI I am on X7 ... the latest and not so greatest.

It's been asked for many times, you can do it using invisible walls and slide a  railing in that space (No room def for the railing) , there are other ways to do that also. As for the stair rail, you need to create the railing exactly what you want ,on the flat and slide it on the stairs and check "follow stairs"

[glennw]

You can do the fascia mount railing with 1 wall definition.

No invisible walls needed.

 

Define your railing wall definition with an additional external layer with Opening (no Material). 

This will offset the whole rail by the wall layer thickness.

Check Generate on Low Platform (Rail Style...Build From...) 

Convert it to a no railing wall and drag the bottom down - you can't do that with a rail.

Convert back to a rail.

 

The main drawback of doing it this way is that you get a single corner post that would be difficult to support.

[adventhomes]

Thanks ... I'll check out both above tips later.  First time in 4 years I've called support and they were as much use as a chocolate kettle ;-)

[CJSpud]

I think many users will agree that there are changes that should be made to improve the way we can build railings for both decks and stairs.  Nevertheless, I don't expect Chief OTB to be able to resolve all of the railing design issues that I come up against.  That's where a little creativity using some of the other tools often comes in to play.  And there's always a bunch of other Chiefers and/or CA staff members on ChiefTalk that just seem to be able to figure things out and are always willing to come to the rescue.

 

I have been very pleased with the help that I have received from Tech Support over the years.  They've been very good at helping me resolve problems I couldn't figure out.  They are all good people IMO.

[adventhomes]

Well I figured out a way to generate fascia mounted posts in 3D (as well as elevation & plan views) ... using polyline solids for the part that extends below the deck level.  And I created a new railing wall type with an "opening - no material" exterior layer which was 7" wide.  I'm not quite sure why 3 1/2" wide didn't work given my posts are 3 1/2" square & they were previously right on the deck edge ... but I am happy I just have something that works, even if it did take quite a while to get this far.  At least the next one will go much faster.  Thanks for the tips !!

 

The other tricky part I had is due to the railing having panels with a top cap running across the top of everything.  I used another polyline solid for the top cap as CA wanted to make everything the same colour/material of course if I tried one T shaped top rail.  Also when it came to the stairs, no matter what I tried the railing that I created on the flat & tried sliding in to position did not want to follow the stair so I opted for another polyline solid slid in to place as the bottom rail & then I'll include a CAD detail showing the air gap between it and the closed stringer.  That's close enough for now.

 

[tried including an image here but did't work & not sure quite where I went wrong]

[Bill_Emery]

Here's a slightly different take on the problem.

I've defined the deck with the invisible wall, and I've also specified retaining wall.

The railing is first drawn as a regular wall, and adjusted for height in elevation, and then converted to a railing. It is specified as no room definition, and as a terrain retaining wall. This definition allows me to pull the railing wall back at the corners to show the double post.

This solution will look correct in vector views, and gives the double post at the corner, while keeping everything live.

[yusuf-333]

My take is just create broken ramp to be the virtual control platform around the deck and around stairs, so that the rails follow the ramp, the unseen capability of chief is the most effective ones as I always state.