My first instructable!!!
After getting really expensive quotes for my railings, i decided to make my own. i got inspired by my skateboard wheels, i liked how the light shined through. i purchased some stock steel channels to use as posts, machined the wheels to hold the glass panes and then took measurements about 17 different times and ordered the glass. everything fit perfectly and i saved 6000$.
You might not need railings, but maybe this will give you other ideas!
After getting really expensive quotes for my railings, i decided to make my own. i got inspired by my skateboard wheels, i liked how the light shined through. i purchased some stock steel channels to use as posts, machined the wheels to hold the glass panes and then took measurements about 17 different times and ordered the glass. everything fit perfectly and i saved 6000$.
You might not need railings, but maybe this will give you other ideas!
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i used 3 inch channels to make the posts. check with your local building codes, but here railings have to be 42 inch high. i made the posts 40 inch as the glass pane goes 2 inches higher than the posts. make sure you're installing them in something solid!
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the rest was just labor time. took one day to do the wheels, and about 2 or 3 days of measuring everything 17 times. once everything was in place, the glass took longer to uncrate than to install.
Or a wheel mfg.
But I know making it yourself felt good. Very awesome engineering.
you dont learn much by paying someone else to do something for you. if everybody did that, we wouldnt have this website!!!
that said, the 40 wheels cost me a tad under 100$ shipped to my door. i tried contacting a wheel co. but they never replied, i doubt they would have given me a better price, a set of 4 from a known brand is usually about 38$. And i'm pretty sure 3d printing would have cost a lot more...
i wanted skateboard wheels because they actually mean something to me, more than any other generic manufactured part...
I think that the lock washers may be unnecessary. Are they actually being compressed? there shouldn't be any tendency for the nuts to loosen, no building vibrations, i.e. heavy nearby traffic ; ). "Locktite" on the threads?
But three cheers to a nicely thought out and artistic design!!! ; )
they're not lock washers, just regular washers used to spread the weight wider on the wheel face. any vibrations are suppressed by the urethane wheel.
the house is very minimalistic, very precise and almost chirurgical. i used wood, iron and concrete to counterbalance it all. the goal was to use these materials in the most original form possible, including their flaws; some iron posts have yellow pen markings on them, some are slightly stained or rusted. i used cedar to cover a wall in the kitchen, its full of knots and imperfections, its not coated with anything so it will change color with time. the concrete floors have marks, cracks and stains that change with time... its not some kind of ideology or dogma, its just some design guidelines i set myself when i started to design the house. just a path layed out so that it doesnt end up looking all over the place!
AND, it also kept costs down a lot!
cheers!