hand railing build

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as requested I am going to post some in progress pix of a railing we are building. sorry it has taken so long for this, but we have been a bit slow on this type of work of latethe customer wanted larger cap that is standard and was unhappy with any of the larger cap we found so yester day i made up this set of dies for our air hammer.photo 1 shows the top and botttem dies on the hammer the bottem die is setup to form a 1"/1/4" ridge in over a 2"/1/4 flat the top is a 4" Rad. about 2" wide they are forged out of 1 1/2"/2" mild bar and super quenched to 35RC or sothey only have to last for 40 FT or so of bar so makeing them out of a better steel and heat treating them would be a bit over done.  photos 2+3 shows my partner Peter forgeing out the first test peice on the dies, we are starting with 2"/3/4" bar stock. it takes about 4 heats to form the final shape (stoping after the second and third heats to grind off the flash.) photos 4+5 show the finshed cap next it are standard hollow cap and anouther cap we make in house along with  the die for the other cap.more to come.MP Attached ImagesHeat it and Beat it!!!http:www.Fallinghammerproductions.com
Reply:looks good lokks like fun
Reply:nice cap!  Most of us are stuck ordering stuff like that DewayneDixieland WeldingMM350PLincoln 100Some torchesOther misc. tools
Reply:Thats awsome man.. i work at a shop and we make a ton of railing. we always order our cap. i had no idea you could make it man. thats awsome so what is the rail for? and what kind of design are you going for? lets see some photos man..
Reply:Awesome!
Reply:sorry this is taking so long, the final OK's on the cap and color took longer that I would have liked and we had/have some other work to finish up along with this project... that being said we started on the two smaller sections of this railing, the we forged out the cap  (pix 1) and twisted up the pickets (every other picket will be twisted pix 2 &3) the pickets are 5/8 SQ the twist is 1 full turn 6" long centered on the bar.  More to come MP Attached ImagesHeat it and Beat it!!!http:www.Fallinghammerproductions.com
Reply:sorry to take so long updateing this ... we got held up a bit by the weather and  our painter.. you know how it is.here are some more in progress pix on the curved section including the bent bar for the bottom stringer on the other side (it was bent to match the 1st, and the other side was based off that.)MP Attached ImagesHeat it and Beat it!!!http:www.Fallinghammerproductions.com
Reply:and some shot of the finished railings the sizes on these (for scale) the cap is 2 1/2" by 3/4" the pickets are 5/8"SQ  set on the dimond the posts are 1"SQ and the stringer is 1/2" by 1"  the highs on these are 36" for the two railings by the side door 39" going down to 36" in curved section and 38" on the section with the post. they were painted with Vinal Last (best paint we have found for Iron work) in the Med Brown, and are set into the steps 6" we would love some feed back on thesethanks MP Attached ImagesHeat it and Beat it!!!http:www.Fallinghammerproductions.com
Reply:a few more pix Attached ImagesHeat it and Beat it!!!http:www.Fallinghammerproductions.com
Reply:Verry nice.My Photos on Flickr
Reply:Yep, very nice, I especially like the curved units and the rails on that house with the big white columns. Power hammers are great, wish I could pick one up for cheap. John -  fabricator extraordinaire, car nut!-  bleeding Miller blue! http://www.weldfabzone.com
Reply:Those are amazing hand rails. Never really knew that anyone made the rails from scratch like that. Great work!Patriot Performance AutoLincoln Power Mig 255CLincoln AC-225 StickVictor Journeyman O/AQuincy QT-5 Compressor
Reply:Very nice work- and looking at your website, the three of you are definitely wild and crazy guys. I like your armour- do you ever weld in it? Seems like medieval auto darkening helms might be the next big thing, and build your neck muscles at the same time.Very nice custom cap rail, too.You show how its not really that complicated, to step out of the "order it from King metals " box, and do custom work.
Reply:Very nice work, esp the fair curve on the front door twins, and the quarter round climbing over the base on the big columns. I don't know the terminology, but do you heat the rail stock with a big rosebud or something as another guy is drawing it slowly and evenly along the die as the hammer beats it into shape? That is awesome, and probably looks even better in the flesh. The graceful shape of the front step rails makes the puffed-up columns and busy rooflines of the entryway look overdone. Nice job!JimI'm a builder and think about this proportion stuff all the time.
Reply:awsome work mp  I also like your website very cool stuff
Reply:That is some great work.  It great to see good old craftsmanship still being used.  Feel free to post more the pics are great.
Reply:Just out of curiosity what kind of equipment are you using to heat all the metal?
Reply:Thats a good looking rail, I like how you curved it on the bottom as it go's over the column.
Reply:The rails look great.You guys do nice work.ECAVE Still learnin'Lincoln AC225Lincoln 135SPHF ChopsawVictor O/ANumerous other items
Reply:we now have two air hammers one is a hand built (we call it twitch.... not a lot of control there)   that my partner built 10 years ago, the other is a Say-Mak we picked up last year, not cheap but a very good hammer with a lot of control.  welding in a full suit of armor isn't something I ever thought of doing, 1 armor isn't all that comfy(average or 65lb and it pinches even when fit corectly) 2 it isn't cheep we charge $3000+ for a full suit. and cleaning mig berrys off it would suck. LOLwe heat the bar in the forge (we run propain) to a bright red heat and forge it out in sections that over lap, with this cap profile, we run it through once and then grind off the flash then run it through again. for the curve we forged out the cap, then reheated it in the forge and bent it on the anvil to match the stringer (that we bent the same way) bending on the hard is a bit more of a pain, but is doable as long as you flaten it out and go slow,in the past when we were building on a form we did use a torch to heat and bend the curve, but that was a turn out and in square stock much easier to bend.the little curve over the post base was the only way we could come up with to meet the code spaceing ... and it was on the onlt part of the job that fell with in the code, it looks so good I think we will use it again, even if it we don't need to.thanks for all the nice comments. feel free to ask me any other questions you all haveMPHeat it and Beat it!!!http:www.Fallinghammerproductions.com
Reply:Dude,that's quite the hammer! Makes my ball peen seem kinda inadequate. The finished railings look perfect. What does it for me is the bottom rail coped around the base of the columns. That's what craftsmanship is. I'll have to look up that vinyl last stuff. Is it better than Devoe's paint?Man invented metal, he can do whatever he wants with it.KMAC