Living Finish Bronze Railing
A client on the New Jersey shore was building an exceptional home. Both the client and his architect were looking for an extraordinary railing design. They wanted a railing created from solid bronze in a horizontal design. The railing design was for ½ “solid round bars to be spaced 4” on center, and for the bronze to be mill finished so that it would be a living finish bronze railing. With the costal environment it would consistently be in varying stage of verdigris. This causes the railing to be every changing and bring the beauty that comes with that.
Our goal was for a railing design to look as clean as possible. The initial approach was to weld the joints for strength and rigidity, but after doing some brainstorming, we came up with an assembly approach to eliminate 90% of all welding required. We came up with an assembly technique of taking a drill bit and drilling through the vertical bar, into the horizontal bar, then use a bronze dowel .010 larger and hammer it into the hole. This hammering technique then expanded the hammered dowel in the hole of both the vertical and horizontal bars.
Initially, the 1” X 1 ½ “ posts for the bronze railing were intended to be tubular, but the hammered dowel technique needed a solid post. So, all the railing posts were then switched out to solid posts. The top rail of the bronze railing was specified as 1 ½ “ X ½ “ bar channel. We pre-drilled all the railing to prep it for the 1” X 2” mahogany caprail. This mahogany caprail really enhanced the entire railing project aesthetic.
Another challenge was to get all the horizontal rods to be attached directly into the posts without any bracketry or visible attachments. So we designed all the 1 ½ “ X ½ “ bar channel to be removed from the bronze railing section. Next, we drilled horizontal holes into the posts and put some epoxy into them. Then, we slid the railing section into the holes, left and right, and remounted the top channel. This process created stability for the entire bronze railing section. The completed bronze railing project enhanced this shore home immediately. It will continue to only enhance this property as the living finish slowly transform this rail over the years to come.