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Railing
I want to put a railing out by my fire pit. I have three designs, all of which are based on Islamic patterns. (See attached). But I have a few questions.
The drawings show the frame as 1.5" sq tube (IIRC). Many on here say to stay away from tube for railings. What should I use then? I'm thinking 2" flat bar maybe 3/16"-1/4" thick.
The interior (designs) were originally gonna be 3/4"x1/8" flat bar. Now I wonder if that is big enough. I don't want it to be dainty, but I also don't want it to be comically big. Looking for the right scale. Railing is gonna be about 12.5 ft long. Any opinions/advice on this?
The original plan as seen in the drawing was the curved petal shape, but I've decided on the bent bone shape laid out in a diagonal pattern. Unfortunately I couldn't get it to behave in the Onshape drawing like the other design, but hopefully you get the idea.
Edit: Thanks in advance for any input! I'm still extremely amateur at welding.
Last edited by tiggen; 06-14-2022 at 07:32 PM.
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Re: Railing
Tubing isn't the worst thing to use, if you drill/grind weep holes on the lower side of the stuff at either end. Allowing the water to drain out, makes up for any faulty non-waterproof welds made during the fab process. It's good insurance.
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Re: Railing
Tubing is fine. Not sure who “many” is, but not many use solid 1.5 inch. 100 percent of all tubing failures I have repaired are result of water infiltration due to easily traceable careless sealing of holes or weld porosity. Water will win, it is patient. Flat bar at 1/4 will be difficult to keep from warping and be flexxy over long distance, channel works and the right combo will give a cap for the tubing,
Are you fabricating the infill or having it burned? Thickness will be dictated by size of the pattern and frequency. Also if you are Fabbing the infill them making the bends must be considered. For 1/4 thick at 3/4 or smaller thickness I would bend cold. Or 1/2 inch square and smaller I would bend cold.
Good luck
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Re: Railing
Nothing wrong at all with tube . Just do it correctly . Everything we do is either ally or stainless , so we do not need drainage for the same reasons as steel .I tend to consider steel as not the ideal medium for balustrading . Very few steel balustrades in Australia .
Looks wise I would go a 2x1 Rectangular frame before 1.5 square and stay away from flat bar , too much chance of defection , with no real advantages .
In steel a bit over 6 ft span between legs should be ok with the bracing the infill gives .
Would consider 2 over 1 intermediate legs as the infill may cut more economically out of available sheet sizes .
Last edited by Brett; 06-15-2022 at 05:56 PM.
A good guess is better than a bad measurement
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Re: Railing
You could use bar channel. You wouldn't have to worry about internal corrosion and you wouldn't have the deflection issues of flat bar
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Re: Railing
Your posts should be solid as tube posts rust out fast.
Tube members are not a problem.
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Re: Railing
Thx for replies, I guess tube for the frame after all. I went to see a friend of mine here who suggested the first (curved) design. It's the design I wanted to do in the first place, but I wasn't sure how to do it. He gave me a great idea: order pipe or tube at a given radius/wall thickness and chop it up on the bandsaw. He gave me a piece of 4.5" x .25" wall to try out. Not sure I like the .25" wall, and I may got up to 5-6" pupe/tube, but I think I'm gonna keep into .120" wall.
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Re: Railing
Originally Posted by
tiggen
Thx for replies, I guess tube for the frame after all. I went to see a friend of mine here who suggested the first (curved) design. It's the design I wanted to do in the first place, but I wasn't sure how to do it. He gave me a great idea: order pipe or tube at a given radius/wall thickness and chop it up on the bandsaw. He gave me a piece of 4.5" x .25" wall to try out. Not sure I like the .25" wall, and I may got up to 5-6" pupe/tube, but I think I'm gonna keep into .120" wall.
That looks NEAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Re: Railing
Create a box as a building gauge for each part. So, you can standardize size/ perimeter. Very easy a repetitive pattern to drift if the parts are Different sizes.
Flat bar would be faster and easier. Use the pipe as a die.
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Re: Railing
yer gonna make the panel pattern by hand?
dang dat's some patience.
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Re: Railing
Post some more pictures of the progress, I like the layout
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Re: Railing
Originally Posted by
tapwelder
Create a box as a building gauge for each part. So, you can standardize size/ perimeter. Very easy a repetitive pattern to drift if the parts are Different sizes.
Flat bar would be faster and easier. Use the pipe as a die.
I think this is the way I'm gonna go. Got a Swag press brake that I still need to weld up, then I need to figure out how to attach the pipe top and bottom to make the die.
Then I'll make a jig out of plywood scrap for the top part of the petal. Each shape is made of 4 equal arcs. I'll join the top two in the jig, and then I'll need another jig to attach all the top halves together (since the bottom halves are just the tops of the row beneath, if that makes sense). Figure I'll make four rows of petals (5 rows of top halves), which should be 32-34" tall and just make a frame that fits.
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Re: Railing
Do the arches have a specific dimension/ proportion or what looks good?
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Re: Railing
Originally Posted by
tapwelder
Do the arches have a specific dimension/ proportion or what looks good?
Each arc is 60° of a given radius (outside). Not sure yet which radius/thickness is the look I want, but I think 4.5"/.120" is closer than 5"/.25", which is what is above.
Edit: if I go with 4.5"/.120" I will need about 320 pieces, all 2.356" in length. I'll cut them to 2.375" and see if it looks OK. Just got a stick of 1" x .120" bar to chop up for a prototype.
Last edited by tiggen; 06-24-2022 at 07:58 PM.
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Re: Railing
You might need longer if you try to do it in one shot or a die the compensate for spring back. At your thickness hand bending will be fastest. Make some Small bending forks that will allow you to wrap around a form. Even a compact HF bender will make short work of it. If your press is air hydraulic, then you will spend a lot of time waiting.
Seems like a fun project, it will look nice when complete. Look forward to seeing it.
If it gonna be outside then weld inside the vee’s. Unless you don’t mind rust.
I just realized, perhaps it is called a compact bender because it is smaller than the Hossfeld#2
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Re: Railing
Well i had a couple of hours in the garage to myself so I started messing around a little. I got a stick of 1" x 1/8" flat, and since I have one of those compact benders I took the largest die I had, which was unfortunately only a 1.5" radius, and bent and cut up some metal. All the cutting was done with a portable bandsaw. Here are the pieces I cut today witht he original piece of 4.5" pipe as reference.
I don't like the bender or the portable bandsaw. The bender wastes a decent amount of material and there is a lot of cutting bent metal. For cutting I think I'd rather cut the metal on a horizontal bandsaw with a length stop in order to get better uniformity, then press the metal. I'm also not sure a 4" radius die would fit in the bender. The radius would be on the inside of the metal, and all my math is based on the radius of the outisde. I might make a bending fork tomorrow and see what that's like, but I will still have the problem of cutting the bent metal.
Also, I found some oopsies in my math. (Nobody in my family would be surprised by that, btw.) Somewhere I was using diameter instead of radius, but I have it all figured out now. This is ball park, but it at least gives me an idea of what my measurements should be. Made a chart:
Next are the jigs for the welding. For the tops (two pieces) I think I'm gonna make it out of bits of angle welded to some plate so I can clamp everything down. Still not sure how to make the jig for welding the tops to each other to make the pattern. Will think on it a bit more.
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Re: Railing
I would get a stick of pipe in the diameter you need.
Cut uniform slices or rings with a stop as you mentioned.
Then make a jig to cut the rings into quarters or arcs.
I cut pipe into rings on a very regular basis for use in my sculptures. Set up the horizontsl bandsaw with the stop. Let the saw cut one ring as you cut a previous ring into arcs.
Boring and repetitive. But if you don't have multiple jigs for consistency, you will have compounding errors.
One jig or stop for ring width.
One jig to cut rings into arcs.
One jig to weld four arcs together.
One jig to weld 4 to 8 of those pieces together.
Etc.
One idea might be to introduce a feature or design in each panel that allows you pause or reset.
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Last edited by psacustomcreations; 06-25-2022 at 06:02 PM.
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Re: Railing
When you make your fixture box, make sure there is not interference for tacking. I assume you will TIG otherwise protect the fixture from spatter.
Not sure if you have access to a horizontal bandsaw. You could tack bent parts together and trim.
However, my goal would be to determine the exact length to cut use the bending fork to bend the last bit/leverage.
Your proportion are friendly, so you can let the actual radius you can achieve consistently with least effort and process…opposed trying to creat a specific radius.
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Re: Railing
After thinking a bit, it might be better to make them in rows instead of the fish shape.
You can use something as a straight edge on the bottom. Set your width with some pieces tacked in place.
Use another straight edge on top and pull or push down to lock the row in place.
Easy enough to stagger the rows as you stack them.
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Millermatic 252 MIG
Miller Dynasty 200DX TIG
Altas 12x36 Metal Lathe
Bridgeport Milling Machine
Arclight Dynamics 4x8 plasma table
www.psacustomcreations.com
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Re: Railing
Very nice pattern.
That looks like a nightmare to weld out in scale, but will give you lots of practice.
If you only tack the ends expect rust streaks from the joints, but it will be MUCH faster to put together.
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Re: Railing
Originally Posted by
psacustomcreations
I would get a stick of pipe in the diameter you need.
Cut uniform slices or rings with a stop as you mentioned.
Then make a jig to cut the rings into quarters or arcs.
I cut pipe into rings on a very regular basis for use in my sculptures. Set up the horizontsl bandsaw with the stop. Let the saw cut one ring as you cut a previous ring into arcs.
Yeah, that was the original idea, but I can't find 8-9" x .120" wall tube/pipe.
Originally Posted by
psacustomcreations
You can use something as a straight edge on the bottom. Set your width with some pieces tacked in place.
Use another straight edge on top and pull or push down to lock the row in place.
Easy enough to stagger the rows as you stack them.
I planned on staggering rows, though I'm not sure what you mean with the straight edges. Do you mean have two parallel straight edges so I can slot a bunch of the tops between them to weld them up to each other?
Originally Posted by
tapwelder
When you make your fixture box, make sure there is not interference for tacking. I assume you will TIG otherwise protect the fixture from spatter.
Not sure if you have access to a horizontal bandsaw. You could tack bent parts together and trim.
However, my goal would be to determine the exact length to cut use the bending fork to bend the last bit/leverage.
Your proportion are friendly, so you can let the actual radius you can achieve consistently with least effort and process…opposed trying to creat a specific radius.
I am learning to TIG steel and AL, and while I would love the practice, I'm not sure I have the patience, esp given that I'd be dipping/grinding a lot of tungsten. I'll start with MIG and see if it looks ok.
Thanks for the advice about protecting the fixture from spatter. McMaster has spray, dip-in, or brush-on. Any advice on which is best?
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Re: Railing
I typically use spray on parts table and nozzle. I occasionally use the nozzle dip if I have a heavy /continuous welding job.
Tig will be faster for tacking. If Fixtured with good
fit up then you won’t need filler. There is some practice time for you.
Last edited by tapwelder; 06-27-2022 at 02:11 AM.
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Re: Railing
To the OP, one idea instead of using pipe is to use old garage door springs.
I stopped by a place that services overhead doors and asked to dig through their dumpster. They had these springs for commercial doors. 7 inches in diameter and 5/16 inches thick.
I use a cut off wheel and make rings out of them. Strong material that is nice and consistent.
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Miller Dynasty 200DX TIG
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Re: Railing
That design really is beautiful IMO!
I wish they sold at least the basic shapes pre-made, because it is so labor intensive.
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Re: Railing
Ok, I just got back from vacation, and I need to start this project. After a long think slicing round pipe is the way to go. I drew up a bunch of radius/wall thicknesses in Onshape, and I've settled on 6" pipe. Local yard has some precut 6' lengths for parking bollards, so I'll prolly get 1 or 2 of those to save on cost. Either 3/16" or 5/6" wall.
Now, how do I slice it up? I'm thinking about using this project as an excuse to buy a horizontal bandsaw, but I don't have space (or immediate future use) for a 7x12. If I'm cutting 6" pipe, I need close to 7" round capacity, right? Is there a way to cut beyond a saw's capaciity? If not, I may just ask a friend to borrow his for beer money or a new blade.
I'm asuming that for what I would pay someone to make this railing for me, I could prolly buy a pretty nice saw. And I also assume that doing all this work on a nice saw is gonna make it much easier/more enjoyable.