WARNING: Lots of text and photos. 
Building a Bent Handrail
This is a project for a home theater. I have a BUNCH of customized fixtures and mouldings all over this room. This is one more customization to add to the look.
This was one of the more difficult projects I've ever tackled. I had been planning this thing for over a decade in my head... trying to figure out how I'd do it. It took me about 5 months of working on it off-and-on.
The problem: I have a winder stairway. (Jump to the last photo, if you don't know what a winder is). The code used to require individual, straight rails on the three outside walls or a single, continuous rail on the inside of the winder. Obviously, most builders would opt for three straight rails-- much cheaper and easier to install. The only problem for me is that 2 of the 3 outer walls have large fixtures on them; they wouldn't accommodate a handrail. So, this left me with a continuous handrail, which would then have to be bent. I was thinking of doing a PVC or metal rail, but I have more experience with bending wood, so I thought I'd stick to the material I was more familiar with. (BTW, the code has changed since I planned this project... it says any rails ending within 6" of each other can be deemed "continuous.")
Also, I should mention another issue for me: the ends of the walls in this area are curved. I did a special custom job on these... it limited my ability to use pre-fab rail fittings, which are designed to go around normal square-ended walls. I wanted the bend in the rail to conform to the curved profile of the end of the wall.
So, I bought some FSWO from Scott Smith back in Dec. It came from an old oak (~150yo) in Albemarle, NC that was damaged by Hurricane Fran:
The first thing I had to do was build a bending form. Here is a photo of the jig from the end, so you can see the seven pieces of 2x4. The form is set to the width of the wall PLUS the amount of gap needed between the handrail and the wall (1-1/2"). I also shaped the bending form to match the curved profile of the wall (again, see last photo to see the walls).
This photo also shows the pieces of oak that I milled already in the jig.
I milled about 50 pieces of 1/4x1/4" oak strips for bending (I don't remember the exact number I used, but I think it was about 44). I tried 1/2" x 1/2" strips, but I couldn't get them to bend successfully over this severe angle. I made 5 hold-down blocks for the jig. I designed the hold-downs in Microsoft Visio, printed them, then glued them to plywood and cut them on a scroll saw. The plywood pieces were then screwed to the face of 2x4 blocks, which are then bolted into the main bending form. To figure out the angles I would need, I had to make another jib (not pictured here), that fit around the end of the wall, allowing me to see what kind of angle would be needed on the upper and lower stair portions.
Here you can see the form, blocks, and the oak strips bent to form:
Close-up of a hold-down with plywood bending form:
I steam bent the wood. I think I over-did the steaming... some were almost floppy. I also broke about 8-10 of the oak pieces.
The wood had powder post beetles. As you can see, some of them split at the PPB holes. This was some REALLY beautiful wood.... it would have made some beautiful rustic furniture. Had some mineralizing in it and spalting. I felt kind of ashamed to use this wood for my purposes... it would ultimately be painted (I know :embaresse) But oh well... oak is good bending wood.:thumbs_up
The split pieces didn't worry me though. I knew I could just rearrange them and bury them in the middle of the rail once I glued it all up. I left the wood in the jig for a couple weeks (while working on some other projects). I then disassembled the jig and pulled the bent pieces out... then got them ready for gluing.
I used West System epoxy. I had actually bought DAP Weldwood Plastic Resin Glue to do this; however, when testing it, I just didn't like the consistency. It seemed WAY too thick and elastic. It was HIGHLY recommended on some other forums for bent rail work though. Anyway, I've used West epoxy on other projects and decided to use it. Ironically, just 2 days after using the epoxy, someone here started a thread about using epoxy on WO. Someone mentioned there's a lot of people in the boat building world who say WO and epoxy don't play well together (I believe it was the tannins in the oak resist adhesion of the epoxy). I did further research on this, and apparently, there are just as many people that say there is no problem... plus I was already committed by that time. :BangHead: So... hopefully, it will stay together. :confused_
I used slow-curing hardener and also used 403 Microfibers as a filler, so you can see that as the milky color in the epoxy:
There were some gaps by the time I finished putting all these pieces into the jig. I have to say, the whole glue up was a BIG pain-in-the-youknowwhat.
But, this is what eventually came out of the jig and after some rough shaping (free-handed with a belt sander):
The end, showing some of the gaps, where some pieces were missing or out of place (again, no problem... nothing I couldn't fill with more epoxy):
So, then I knew that free-handing a perfect cylindrical handrail was not going to work for me.... I needed a consistent radius. I didn't want to use scrapers, because there were so many weird curves to the piece, both convex and concave and knew I'd have troubles with keeping the scraper working consistently.
So, I made a shaping mandrel (that's what I call it.... I couldn't find anything like it on the web). I turned a wooden concave profile from a block of wood, and then applied 80 grit stearate paper from Klingspor. I had originally tried some other paper and rubber cemented it to the mandrel, but it got clogged quickly. I then had to scrape all the paper pieces from the mandrel and reapply new pieces. BIG pain.
I then came up with the idea of velcroing the strips to the mandrel, so I went out and bought hook-backed paper from Klingspor (where my NCWW discount didn't work, but that's another thread. :wink_smil ) Anyway, velcroing didn't work at all. The pieces just flew off. So I decided to rubber cement this paper. It worked VERY well (albeit more expensive than it could have been, since I got the hook-backed roll of paper). The aggressive 80 grit and the stearate helped immensely. I shaped the entire piece with only needing 1 or 2 replacements of the paper.
This is out of order, but this is how I finally realized I should have cut the paper:
Here you can see individual strips applied (a pain). It was a LOT easier with the pieces that I cut like above.
The mandrel is attached to my ShopSmith in lathe configuration.
Here's the final piece, with a bunch of filler and a gel coat of epoxy over the piece:
So, that was the center piece of the handrail, where it curves around my winder's inner wall. The rest of the handrail is made from three pieces that I turned on my ShopSmith. I glued up 3 pairs of wood strips. This time, I used the Weldwood plastic resin, and I thinned it a little more than suggested on the container (just a VERY little extra water). It worked very well.
Here's one of the pieces after finished turning. You can see spalting at the far end of the piece. This wood was very pretty. (more distress over painting it, but I had no intention of keeping it natural, as I knew I would have to use filler all over the curved mid-section).
Here's the finished rail after joining three turned (straight) pieces and the curved mid-section. I joined them with round tenons. I bored the ends of some of the pieces for mortises, then hand-carved the circular tenons. More epoxy, shaping, gel coat, and finish sanding....
and voila:
Here it is installed:
Hope you enjoyed the photos... I know how we all like pictures.
Building a Bent Handrail
This is a project for a home theater. I have a BUNCH of customized fixtures and mouldings all over this room. This is one more customization to add to the look.
This was one of the more difficult projects I've ever tackled. I had been planning this thing for over a decade in my head... trying to figure out how I'd do it. It took me about 5 months of working on it off-and-on.
The problem: I have a winder stairway. (Jump to the last photo, if you don't know what a winder is). The code used to require individual, straight rails on the three outside walls or a single, continuous rail on the inside of the winder. Obviously, most builders would opt for three straight rails-- much cheaper and easier to install. The only problem for me is that 2 of the 3 outer walls have large fixtures on them; they wouldn't accommodate a handrail. So, this left me with a continuous handrail, which would then have to be bent. I was thinking of doing a PVC or metal rail, but I have more experience with bending wood, so I thought I'd stick to the material I was more familiar with. (BTW, the code has changed since I planned this project... it says any rails ending within 6" of each other can be deemed "continuous.")
Also, I should mention another issue for me: the ends of the walls in this area are curved. I did a special custom job on these... it limited my ability to use pre-fab rail fittings, which are designed to go around normal square-ended walls. I wanted the bend in the rail to conform to the curved profile of the end of the wall.
So, I bought some FSWO from Scott Smith back in Dec. It came from an old oak (~150yo) in Albemarle, NC that was damaged by Hurricane Fran:
The first thing I had to do was build a bending form. Here is a photo of the jig from the end, so you can see the seven pieces of 2x4. The form is set to the width of the wall PLUS the amount of gap needed between the handrail and the wall (1-1/2"). I also shaped the bending form to match the curved profile of the wall (again, see last photo to see the walls).
This photo also shows the pieces of oak that I milled already in the jig.
I milled about 50 pieces of 1/4x1/4" oak strips for bending (I don't remember the exact number I used, but I think it was about 44). I tried 1/2" x 1/2" strips, but I couldn't get them to bend successfully over this severe angle. I made 5 hold-down blocks for the jig. I designed the hold-downs in Microsoft Visio, printed them, then glued them to plywood and cut them on a scroll saw. The plywood pieces were then screwed to the face of 2x4 blocks, which are then bolted into the main bending form. To figure out the angles I would need, I had to make another jib (not pictured here), that fit around the end of the wall, allowing me to see what kind of angle would be needed on the upper and lower stair portions.
Here you can see the form, blocks, and the oak strips bent to form:
Close-up of a hold-down with plywood bending form:
I steam bent the wood. I think I over-did the steaming... some were almost floppy. I also broke about 8-10 of the oak pieces.
The wood had powder post beetles. As you can see, some of them split at the PPB holes. This was some REALLY beautiful wood.... it would have made some beautiful rustic furniture. Had some mineralizing in it and spalting. I felt kind of ashamed to use this wood for my purposes... it would ultimately be painted (I know :embaresse) But oh well... oak is good bending wood.:thumbs_up
The split pieces didn't worry me though. I knew I could just rearrange them and bury them in the middle of the rail once I glued it all up. I left the wood in the jig for a couple weeks (while working on some other projects). I then disassembled the jig and pulled the bent pieces out... then got them ready for gluing.
I used West System epoxy. I had actually bought DAP Weldwood Plastic Resin Glue to do this; however, when testing it, I just didn't like the consistency. It seemed WAY too thick and elastic. It was HIGHLY recommended on some other forums for bent rail work though. Anyway, I've used West epoxy on other projects and decided to use it. Ironically, just 2 days after using the epoxy, someone here started a thread about using epoxy on WO. Someone mentioned there's a lot of people in the boat building world who say WO and epoxy don't play well together (I believe it was the tannins in the oak resist adhesion of the epoxy). I did further research on this, and apparently, there are just as many people that say there is no problem... plus I was already committed by that time. :BangHead: So... hopefully, it will stay together. :confused_
I used slow-curing hardener and also used 403 Microfibers as a filler, so you can see that as the milky color in the epoxy:
There were some gaps by the time I finished putting all these pieces into the jig. I have to say, the whole glue up was a BIG pain-in-the-youknowwhat.
But, this is what eventually came out of the jig and after some rough shaping (free-handed with a belt sander):
The end, showing some of the gaps, where some pieces were missing or out of place (again, no problem... nothing I couldn't fill with more epoxy):
So, then I knew that free-handing a perfect cylindrical handrail was not going to work for me.... I needed a consistent radius. I didn't want to use scrapers, because there were so many weird curves to the piece, both convex and concave and knew I'd have troubles with keeping the scraper working consistently.
So, I made a shaping mandrel (that's what I call it.... I couldn't find anything like it on the web). I turned a wooden concave profile from a block of wood, and then applied 80 grit stearate paper from Klingspor. I had originally tried some other paper and rubber cemented it to the mandrel, but it got clogged quickly. I then had to scrape all the paper pieces from the mandrel and reapply new pieces. BIG pain.
I then came up with the idea of velcroing the strips to the mandrel, so I went out and bought hook-backed paper from Klingspor (where my NCWW discount didn't work, but that's another thread. :wink_smil ) Anyway, velcroing didn't work at all. The pieces just flew off. So I decided to rubber cement this paper. It worked VERY well (albeit more expensive than it could have been, since I got the hook-backed roll of paper). The aggressive 80 grit and the stearate helped immensely. I shaped the entire piece with only needing 1 or 2 replacements of the paper.
This is out of order, but this is how I finally realized I should have cut the paper:
Here you can see individual strips applied (a pain). It was a LOT easier with the pieces that I cut like above.
The mandrel is attached to my ShopSmith in lathe configuration.
Here's the final piece, with a bunch of filler and a gel coat of epoxy over the piece:
So, that was the center piece of the handrail, where it curves around my winder's inner wall. The rest of the handrail is made from three pieces that I turned on my ShopSmith. I glued up 3 pairs of wood strips. This time, I used the Weldwood plastic resin, and I thinned it a little more than suggested on the container (just a VERY little extra water). It worked very well.
Here's one of the pieces after finished turning. You can see spalting at the far end of the piece. This wood was very pretty. (more distress over painting it, but I had no intention of keeping it natural, as I knew I would have to use filler all over the curved mid-section).
Here's the finished rail after joining three turned (straight) pieces and the curved mid-section. I joined them with round tenons. I bored the ends of some of the pieces for mortises, then hand-carved the circular tenons. More epoxy, shaping, gel coat, and finish sanding....
and voila:
Here it is installed:
Hope you enjoyed the photos... I know how we all like pictures.
