Building Rustic Deck Railing Spindles

Building rustic deck railing is slow going, no doubt about that.  We've been focusing our attention on getting the deck railing completed (finally, the deck has been done for months now) but even after hours of work each day, the design work is concentrated (I'm the lead) and the installation tedious (Johny's the lead)...yes of course, we are working together, but this approach has us working well together.  I thought I'd share a little of our process...


We start with rhododendron trees and limbs that we previously cut to give us a better view of our waterfalls...click on the link for more about that.  What you see here is several piled together.

When we started, everything between the posts and rails was without spindles (also known as balusters).

Slowly, each piece was evaluated for a good fit while making sure everything we installed was going to provide strength to the whole structure...

...each full limb was positioned in several places until I saw an aesthetically pleasing line...

...then we began removing the branches that we didn't want and positioning the branch on the rail...

...until we had the line we wanted (we still leave extra length until we are absolutely sure we can install it where we want.

Sometimes installation includes notching a space on the bottom rail so the branch will sit securely...

...the branch above is the second from the left in this picture...it has a lot of nice curve even though the picture above doesn't do it justice..eventually we get to this...

...we use clamps to hold potential pieces in place while we decide if we like them or not.

When we like it, we snip off what we don't want and proceed to screw and/or nail the pieces in.  At a minimum, they are attached at the top and bottom rail, but sometimes we attach some of them to each other at their intersection, adding more strength to the whole. 

One of the things we've been trying to do is keep the rail three dimensional...we like the feel of it.  We've also had sections of limbs wrap around the top...you can be sure there won't be another deck railing like our anywhere!

 This is the section we worked on today, not finished but excellent progress!

 This is two sections together to give you a feel of how the whole thing will look.  One thing we discussed today was the possibility of connecting two sections by intertwining a branch between them both...so far I haven't found a branch I like for that purpose, but the possibilities are endless for how this puzzle fits together!

It may be time consuming, but we are enjoying every step.  I can't to show you the finished project...whenever that may be...!

Thanks for reading my blog, you are the best f/f/r/s/f's, see you tomorrow,
Lise