I have been working on repairing the front porch for a while. It has been one of those projects that I didn’t have a problem starting, but I’ve been very slow finishing. One of the repairs I have been working on has been the front stairs. If the existing stairs weren’t original to the house, they were certainly past their useful life. I have the stairs installed, and am now working on the railing.
I didn’t really like the look of the simple balusters that one can get at the hardware store, so decided to use sawn balusters. However, they are very pricey to order online, and only come in limited styles. I purchased a collection of digital patterns on Etsy, and decided to try to make them myself.
The balusters are made from Poplar that I milled to 5/8″ thick. I think I need to make a total of 14 balusters for the project, and each currently takes about 2-hours to cut out. I’m currently cutting out the entire shape on the CNC. However I may switch to using a pattern bit and router for the outside if the CNC takes too long. The nice thing about the CNC is that I can work on other projects in the shop while it is running.
Lesson’s learned so far:
1. The balusters need to be a little over 31″ long to fit between the top and bottom rail. The boards I have are a little over 7′ long, so I can only get two balusters per board. I need boards a touch over 8′ long to get 3 balusters/board. I’ll have to look through the stack at the lumber yard to get longer pieces when I go back.
2. It takes lots of trial and error to get the cut right. I used MDF as a cheap practice material, however the MDF is tough on the CNC bits.
3. This is a pretty hefty project for this hobby machine, so shallow cuts and long cut times are what seem to work.
My CNC is only 14″ x 14″, so I have to tile the cut and do the project in two steps:
