Walk me through the steps to do this deck railing please

[GeneDavis]

If you have done custom panel railings, you know drill and can save me some time, and it would be a nice instructional for readers here.

 

Attached is a screencap from a Sketchup model I did of a ramp for an exterior wood deck, and as you can see, the railing is an arrangement of 2x4 newel posts on maybe 36" centers, with a middle rail and top rail of 1x6, and a top cap of 1x6.  I did this to match an asbuilt arrangement that is getting an addition, the addition needing a ramp, a wood-framed one.

 

Note the railing is outside the deck rim. 

 

I'm thinking the symbol is made, one newel and maybe a foot or so of rail-rail-cap, and a stretch zone done, but you've done this, and so please, expound.

[MarkMc]

I had something like it so adjusted, was a bit further off than I thought (and don't exactly remember what I did first time :)

This is in the plan, you can go from there I hope?

Gene Rail.zip

[GeneDavis]

Thanks, Mark.  I see what you did, sort of.

 

I am wanting to do this arrangement of railing on a flat exterior deck, not the ramp.  And again, the railing goes on the outside of the rimboard and its bottom is same elevation of rimboard bottom, which is 1" (decking) plus 7-1/4" (structure) = 8-1/4" below deck elevation.  So total rail height with cap at 36" off deck is 44-1/4".

[SHCanada2]

there was an railing on outside of deck put in the tips and tricks a few months ago

 

[Alaskan_Son]

17 hours ago, jasonn1234 said:

there was an railing on outside of deck put in the tips and tricks a few months ago

That was actually from 6 years ago.

[Kbird1]

There are quite a few Plans and threads on Fascia Mounted Railings on the Forum from the past 6-8 yrs I'd say....

 

There is even one of your own from 2019  

 

https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/topic/24078-how-can-one-put-railings-outboard-deck-or-stair-lines/?tab=comments#comment-194038

 

 

 

 

[GeneDavis]

This thing is driving me crazy.  I have done a test deck with invisible railing walls, then did a railing wall as a standalone wall up tight to the deck, outfitted with a custom newel and custom panel.  I'm unable to drag the bottom of this railing down the 8-1/4" needed to reach the bottom of the 2x8 rim (fascia).  I am unable to get the 1x6 boards (the panel) to butt and meet at each newel.  Any ideas?

DeckProject.plan

[Kbird1]

1 hour ago, GeneDavis said:

This thing is driving me crazy.  I have done a test deck with invisible railing walls, then did a railing wall as a standalone wall up tight to the deck, outfitted with a custom newel and custom panel.  I'm unable to drag the bottom of this railing down the 8-1/4" needed to reach the bottom of the 2x8 rim (fascia).  I am unable to get the 1x6 boards (the panel) to butt and meet at each newel.  Any ideas?

 

 

In elevation you have to convert the RAILING to a Wall, (uncheck railing) pull the bottom down 8" and then turn Railing back on

 

 

[GeneDavis]

Thanks, but the gap between panels is still there.  Solution?

[Kbird1]

4 minutes ago, GeneDavis said:

Thanks, but the gap between panels is still there.  Solution?

 

Probably an issue with your Panel Symbol ?, can't you use an Open Railing and the Middle Rail instead of a Panel for that? 

 

*post the test Plan for people to have a "play for you"

 

Is this Railing Code Compliant where you are?  or is deck less than 24" off the ground?

 

M.

[GeneDavis]

I posted the plan.  "DeckProject", above.

 

No codes apply.  Or rather, there are codes, but zero inspections.

 

We can offset balusters, but we cannot offset panels, and railings center on the wall so a mid rail and toe rail cannot be made to work.  These "rails" are 1x6s and fixed to the inside face of the 2x4 newels.

 

What I really need is a much more rich spec for deck railings, in which one can offset newels, lengthen them down below deck elevation for attachment to fascia, and apply "panel boards" to newels on whichever side one chooses.

 

 

[Kbird1]

7 minutes ago, GeneDavis said:

What I really need is a much more rich spec for deck railings, in which one can offset newels, lengthen them down below deck elevation for attachment to fascia, and apply "panel boards" to newels on whichever side one chooses.

 

I agree we all need it.....

 

* missed the plan above.....

[Alaskan_Son]

There are a ton of tricks and I hardly have time to go over all of them right now, but here are a few more than may not have been mentioned or highlighted:

1. We can use railing walls set to room defintoin
2. We can use railing walls set to no room definition
3. We can overlap normal walls and no room definition walls
4. We can use railing walls next to invisible walls
5. We can use ramps next to our invisible walls
6. We can drag railing walls down by first unchecking railing, dragging, and then converting back to railing
7. We can check Retain Deck Framing, uncheck Auto Regenerate, move the walls out, and then lower the deck floor to drop the railings all at once
8. We can use 3D molding polylines
9. We can use regular molding polyllines
10. We can use 2D extrusions and/or 3D molding symbols with our molding polylines
11. We can apply stacked moldings to our railing profiles (using this method a person could get a middle and top rail without the bottom rail by just using a couple stacked extrusion shapes and the Raise Bottom setting)
12. We can use distributed objects (including solids, symbols, framing objects, etc.)
13. We can use Offsets in our symbol definitions
14. We can use wall thickness to relocate railing as it related to the room
15. We can use various combinations of the above

I'm not sure which method I would use for this example honestly.  If I have to think about it or futz with it for too long I typically just end up modeling it manually or modeling it so that its close enough.   

[MarkMc]

55 minutes ago, GeneDavis said:

Thanks, but the gap between panels is still there.  Solution?

Change the bounding box for the panel symbol- go back and open the symbol I posted to get an idea. Takes trial and error to get it just right.

[ValleyGuy]

Hey Gene, I'm not sure if you've already found a solution or not yet. I was struggling with this as I needed an ADA ramp for a nursing home. 

I ran into a few issues as well, newels can be off set but the top rail doesn't follow suit, once the newels are off set they can't be extended down. Here is what I did:

-make a symbol for a panel - mine was 5'8" long (max recommended ADA rail brkt spacing with newel posts). I used two vertical 2x4's for the top and bottom of a 42" angle cut baluster and then put the 2x6 cap on the top. Choose a material that you can also use for the newels as the newels will show through the 2x6 cap. Also included in the panel sandwich is a 6" space of 'no material'. This helped to centre the 1.5" baluster and 1.5" vertical 2x4's (3" thick) on the 3.5"newel post. Note: when you make this into a symbol put the no material on the bottom layer of plan view, then the 2x4's, then the balusters with the cap centred between the 2x4 and balusters. Do it the other way around and you will have your panel all messed up when you build the complete unit on the ramp.

- Make the ramp, I used the ramp tool (as a ramp and as a flat catwalk - just uncheck the automatic height in the ramp specification and set the Slope rise to 0" for a flat runway)

- Open up the ramp section. Under Railing; set the height (I used 45 inches to accommodate everything), check off Panels, uncheck top and bottom rails, raise the bottom up 1-1/2". Under Newels / Balusters; Square newels, 3-1/2", offset is negative 2.5", and spacing to 6', go to the library for your new panel symbol (mine is Millwork 28 .... yes it took me at least that may times to figure it out lol), don't worry about the panel thickness. Change the material of the newels to match your top 2x6 cap, and let it fly.

- As for the downward extensions of the newel posts, I just made another symbol and strategically placed them in for the photo shoot. I must say that it was a pain every time I had to move the ramp a little bit, so I suggest waiting until last to insert those.

 

It would be really nice if CA would be able to have the top rail off set with the newel posts and save some of this grief. It would also be nice if the deck framing would show up and could be manipulated like regular deck framing.Other than that, the ramp tool works pretty good.