FILENAMES: Vegas_rail_1.jpg Vegas_rail_2.jpg Vegas_rail_3.jpg Vegas_rail_4.jpg Vegas_rail_5.jpg Vegas_rail_6.jpg Vegas_rail_7.jpg Vegas_rail_8.jpg DESCRIPTION: These are pictures of a custom fabricated stair railing. Posted by Ernie Leimkuhler . Ernie provided the following description: ================================================================= These shots are of the railing I went to Las Vegas to build. All the work was done on-site. All cuts were made with a 14" abrasive saw , used outside to keep grit out of the house. I shipped 725 lbs of equipment to Vegas (via Viking Freight) for this job, most of which I used. The single heaviest piece I shipped was my shop-built bar and tube roller, to get the curves, at 250 lbs. I took the Maxstar 200 Inverter TIG on the plane as checked baggage. The wood vollute I had to match was supplied by the guys who built the stairs (Titan Stairs), since they would eventually be adding the wood cap. They did a good job and gave me a consistent 40 degree incline over the length of the main kick-wall. The curved wall is not a radius, but rather a parabolic curve (god-damn sadistic architect bastards, and their stinkin' french curves). The flat sections were built on a 3' x 6' piece of MDF on Sawhorses that I used as a welding table. The curves were rolled on site, then the lower one was screwed to the kick-wall in place, but with wood shims keeping it off of the wood. Pieces of aluminum flashing were slid between the lower bar and the wood to protect the wood from arc burns. The vertical bars and Scrolls of the curved section were all tacked in place using a pair of torpedo levels to maintain a vertical. Then the top bar was fitted to the uprights. Once the curved rail was welded together, the screws were loosened, shims removed, and the rail was screwed all the way down to the wall cap. The railing sections are only welded together on the top bar. The lower bar sections are simply butted up and screrwed down. This helped prevent any unnecessary arc burns on the wood. The S-scroll pieces are made by Indital (from Italy) part# 2009/1. They worked perfectly. I combined them as pairs to form the scroll sections and was able to adjust the relationship of the 2 scrolls according to the incline of the wall. The bar steel is all standard hot rolled steel, base and cap bar 1" x 1/4", ballusters 5/8" square bar. The railing components cost about $450, the rest of the steel about $150. All welds were TIG welded, eliminating any need for weld grinding. Removal of the firescale before TIG welding was avoided by using Haynes 556 alloy filler rod. The Nickle content allows the filler rod to flow right through th scale. This is a very high strength filler rod. The charge to the Client from me was $6500 and all shipping costs, plane tickets room and board were covered by the General contractor. Not bad for 4 days work. I spent the first 5 days in Vegas waitng for the stair guys to fix the wall cap.