Stairway Railing - 2_3

I wanted the bottom posts of the railing to be simple and heavy-duty. I wanted it to be something that gave you confidence as you grabbed it and started up the stairs. I had a chunk of 4 inch square tubing left over from my deck project that I thought would work perfect for this. I got it set in the bandsaw and cut it down to size. It was a little more manageable in a 4 foot length. I cut out some square plates for the top and bottom of the post and gave them nickel sized radiuses. I was originally thinking that quarter sized radiuses would have looked best, but decided that would have put the project a little over budget. The top plate I made about half an inch narrower than the post so I would have a corner to put a big fat weld on that I could round over and blend. I think I might have even made two passes with the welder just to get it all filled in nicely. I wanted the corner radius on top to match the radius of the quarter inch thick steel down below. I started off with a grinding wheel to roughly shape the corners. Grinding wheels last a lot longer than flap discs so I try to use them as much as I can. But the flap disc is what ultimately makes it look nice and smooth and touchable. And lastly I come in with the wire brush to take out any fine lines and give it a slightly polished look. For the bottom plate I'm going to bolt to the concrete floor and I really didn't want the bolts sticking out a lot wider than the post. I thought it could be a bit of a tripping hazard. So I decided to recess them half way within the post, but I still wanted it completely closed up so I made a couple small enclosures that I could notch out for and weld into the tube which would let me do this. Once I got them welded I worked on blending them too. I really didn't trust my concrete floor to be level so I thought it would be best to bolt the plate down in place and then set the tube on top of it and weld it once I got it plumb. The concrete drill bit always seems to walk around on me a little bit and I can never quite keep it where I want it to. So I always drill one and set the bolt in place and tighten the plate down and then drill through the plate to drill the second hole which makes sure it stays lined up and where it needs to be. I laid down some fire suppression blankets, i.e. some old towels from my house that I soaked in the garden hose and then set the post in place and gave it some tacks. On something like this it's usually pretty easy to tell which way the post is leaning and so I just put one big tack on the back side and then you can pull it towards you a little bit and get it plumb before putting a tack on the opposite side which holds it straight up and down in that direction and then you can repeat the process for left to right. Once I had some big tacks on it and I knew it wasn't going to move I went ahead and unbolted it so I could get it all welded up and then bolted it back in place for the final time. Yeah, that thing's not moving. With the bottom post in place now I switched over to installing the upper section that I had previously built up at the farm shop. Gave me a lantern and integrity check going upstairs. Seemed to pass. I centered the railing on the 8x8 wooden beam at the end and then sunk some lag screws into it. I always pre-drill these because the lag screws are sure to split the wood. These are 3-8 inch lag screws so I drilled out quarter inch holes. After moving the fire suppression system to the top of the stairs I was ready to weld in more uprights. The railing wasn't quite plumb so I used a tie down strap to pull it in one direction. I figured this was going to be the case because the loft floor is far from perfect which is why I wanted to get the railing installed and then accurately measure and cut the other uprights so they would keep the railing level. I think it's fairly standard in railing design for the top rail to start angling down to follow the stairs at the front edge of the top stair. So I needed to have another upright against this edge so the cables that I'm eventually going to install will follow the same pattern. So far my fire suppression system had worked flawlessly but I definitely made sure I knew where the multiple fire extinguishers I had in my barn were.