Overbuilt balcony railing project

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This was a balcony railing project another welder buddy and I built together for a customer, finished just in time for Thanksgiving.  I wouldn't bother posting pics of a boring old square picket railing, but this one was more interesting due to the material sizes involved.  The customer had hired an engineer to design the railing and provided us with blueprints to work from.  We both had to show our certifications before working on the job.  I've never had to show welding certs for a simple hand rail before.  In true engineer fashion, he way over-designed the railing, which is evident in the material sizes we used.Top and bottom rails and posts are 2x2x1/4-wall tube.  Base plates are 8x8x1/2, anchored by 1/2" threaded rod, epoxy'd in the concrete slab with Simpson Set-22.  Pickets are 5/8 square 16 ga, which is the only material size in this job that made sense for a railing.   I suggested to the customer to use 14 gauge galvanized tube and 1/4" bases, instead of such thick, un-protected steel, which would have saved the customer quite a bit of money on materials, but he wasn't interested, so we built it according to the engineer's drawings.  Railing dimensions are all standard: posts on 6' centers, 42-1/2" top rail height, pickets on 4" centers, bottom rail 3-1/2" off the slab.Machines used on-site were my Millermatic 175 and Passport migs with .035 T-GS to weld in the pickets.  For the 2x2 tubes, I used the Bobcat running the XMT and Suitcase 8RC with .045 T-11 and my partener used his Bobcat running his Suitcase 12VS with .045 dual-shield.  In the shop, I used my Millermatic 350P in mig spray transfer with .035 solid wire and 98/2 gas to weld the posts to the base plates.Buddys are in the pics, I'm behind the camera.Base plates cut and drilled with 5/8 holes, cleaned for welding and marked for post placement.Post ends cleaned for welding, corners beveled for tacking.Posts welded to base plates.Posts waiting for alignment with the string line.Posts anchored and top & bottom rails tacked into position.Welding the rails in place.  These went in fast, with 2 Bobcats and Suitcases on the job. We also had another friend help with post-weld clean-up, picket jig'ing and painting cause we wanted to get this done before the holiday.Pics continued in next post...Last edited by DesertRider33; 12-06-2009 at 12:24 PM.MM350P/Python/Q300MM175/Q300DialarcHFHTP MIG200PowCon300SMHypertherm380ThermalArc185Purox oaF350CrewCab4x4LoadNGo utilitybedBobcat250XMT304/Optima/SpoolmaticSuitcase12RC/Q300Suitcase8RC/Q400Passport/Q300Smith op
Reply:Putting in the pickets.  My buddys jig'd up the pickets and used the MM175 to tack them in and I came in after them and welded the pickets in with the Passport.  We cut all the pickets ahead of time in the shop and trimmed a few of them up on-site that were a little long.Primer applied. We pre-painted the base plates black in the shop prior to installing the posts so the bottoms of the base plates would be protected.Painted black.  The above pic shows my only dissatisfaction with the metal work on this job. For the end sections on each side of the railing, it was decided to put the pickets in plumb with the level, while the posts we built in the shop to be plumb with the concrete slab, which had a slight slope in one direction.  This difference in leveling caused the pickets on the end sections to not be parallel with the posts.  On the far end in the pic, the slope accross the slab was very little and the pickets look much closer to parallel than in the end pictured in the foreground.  I would rather have put the pickets in parallel to the posts, as I think it would have looked nicer, but my partner and I had already divided up job duties and I was in not charge of picket placement, so he put them in by the level method.  After everything was welded in and I looked at it, I thought we we might end up cutting out the last 2 sections of pickets and re-position them parallel with the posts, but the customer looked at it and was happy with it, so we left it alone.We did all the priming and painting with brushes.  Normally I spray primer and paint but normally I don't build fence and rail panels on-site. I paint the panels at the shop and weld the completed and painted panels to the posts on-site and just spray paint the posts on-site.  Since we decided to build the whole rail on site, we decided to use the brush method, since we didn't want to end up with overspray on the job site.Last edited by DesertRider33; 12-06-2009 at 12:21 PM.MM350P/Python/Q300MM175/Q300DialarcHFHTP MIG200PowCon300SMHypertherm380ThermalArc185Purox oaF350CrewCab4x4LoadNGo utilitybedBobcat250XMT304/Optima/SpoolmaticSuitcase12RC/Q300Suitcase8RC/Q400Passport/Q300Smith op
Reply:I think it came out nice.  You certainly don't have to worry about people leaning on it!
Reply:I would rather have put the pickets in parallel to the posts, as I think it would have looked nicer, but my partner and I had already divided up job duties and I was in not charge of picket placement, so he put them in by the level method. After everything was welded in and I looked at it, I thought we we might end up cutting out the last 2 sections of pickets and re-position them parallel with the posts, but the customer looked at it and was happy with it, so we left it alone.
Reply:Looks great. I can't wait till I am capable of doing something like this.
Reply:Looks good other than whoever is working out on the ledge without safety harness would have made me as homeowner or working partner extremely nervous.  One bad move and I assume someone's insurance is going up in price.A few of my toys !LinuxMintManjaroMiller Roughneck 2E Lincoln WeldPak 100HTP MTS 160 Chicago Electric 80amp Inverter   Victor O/A
Reply:Seriously nice Railing...Miller Diversion 165120 amp Buzz BoxVictor Oxy/Ace Oxy/LPGSmith "Little" Oxy/LPGHypertherm Powermax 30Lot's of Misc. tools n' crap....
Reply:Why did you do so much fab onsite?Oh yeah, I like the wagon.Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.
Reply:Nice work!What certs did they require? That is strange for railing, even more so on a residential site.Dynamic MetalworksMontrose, CODynMetalworks.com
Reply:Thanks everyone for the compliments.  Sandy, I guess I'll call the picket/post alignment issue 'artistic license'.  LOLBryanDowdy, The customer didn't know what certs he wanted us to have and the engineer didn't specify either, so I guess any kind of certs would have been ok.  I guess he just wanted someone who's proven we actually know how to weld. He accepted our D1.1 and D1.3 certs without question.Smawgmaw, yeah we should have been tied in.  Fortunately, no accidents happened.  Brainfarth, it was just a decision we made to fabricate most the railing on-site instead of making the panels off-site like I usually do when I make panels.  It was nice for a change and the site was a nice place to work, beautiful area, great weather, nobody around and enough space to work.  I liked it.That little red wagon, LOL, I get so many comments on that thing whenever I show up on the job with it.  It's the most convenient thing I've ever brought to a job site though, so I keep it on the truck at all times.  MM350P/Python/Q300MM175/Q300DialarcHFHTP MIG200PowCon300SMHypertherm380ThermalArc185Purox oaF350CrewCab4x4LoadNGo utilitybedBobcat250XMT304/Optima/SpoolmaticSuitcase12RC/Q300Suitcase8RC/Q400Passport/Q300Smith op
Reply:It's amazing how much material the pickets work out to, eh? I see what you mean about the non-parallelitude, I agree with your thinking.Design-wise in Canada the top railing has to be able to take a 500 pound-force of impact. So it can add up to a pretty skookum design pretty quick.
Reply:Originally Posted by DesertRider33Smawgmaw, yeah we should have been tied in.  Fortunately, no accidents happened.