Duplicating Victorian Era Porch Railing and Posts

I found extensive rot and failed earlier repair attempts on a wrap-around porch. The Victorian era house was probably built around 1890. Originally the porch posts were one-piece poplar, 8 feet tall, with turned upper portion and squared lower portion. Over the decades many lower portions had been cut out and replaced, some not too well. To make matters worse, the railings were hand-made custom profiles and had rot too. The framing of the porch had already been hacked up on previous repair attempts.

I jacked up the porch in multiple places, raised and repaired the framing where possible, and then went back to the shop to duplicate the railings and the post bases. I used two uncommon table saw techniques to recreate the unique profiles, as well as some hand work.

[tommooe]

The cut at the end of the chamfer if correctly done is a “Lambs tongue”….great job

[chrisbelmore]

Lots of details in such a small amount of space wood. Nice job I learned a bit by watching thanks... I'm new at all this I spend hours and hours on here watching good workmanship. I actually I'm now to the point I spend more time in shop then doing research but at first it was the other way around.

[marniefriedman]

I need this man! I am rehabbing my old historic Victorian. I would love to do the wood working myself, but …

[CDeanhartman]

Im restoring an 1882 Victorian and have the same exact problem -access to clear Cedar! In the Midwest (Chicagoland) it’s nearly impossible to find clear Cedar at a reasonable price. In this instance, it looks like your building short lengths of a one-off design. For some of the bigger projects, it just made more sense for me to buy blades for my Moulder, but it’s hard to justify buying moulder blades for a short length of a one-off design. Great work.

[BoxcarJerry]

Hey John nice work, having some of those old hollow and rounds planes around pays off . The end results look great, im sure the home owner was happy .

[Mopardude]

I think you did right by making them symmetrical, looks good.

[jasondeibler]

this is really great - thanks for posting it. Do you have anything on where you sourced and/or crafted the balusters? I wondered if you made them yourself or bought them.