Reproduction Spindles for a Wisconsin Waterfront Railing

“We have a few bad spindles and want to refurbish our railing.  Can you reproduce our existing spindle design to match the originals?”

This is one of the more common questions we hear from customers.  When you are dealing with a historic property, and/or one with a long family history, “close” just won’t do.  We have helped restore hundreds of different balustrade systems using the existing designs, bringing historic porches back to life.  Often the existing railing has rendered 100+ years of beautiful service, and are just now needing attention.    This is our specialty.

This property owner in Lake Geneva, WI sent us pictures of their waterfront balustrade restoration.  Most of the existing spindles (a.k.a. turned balusters) were in good shape, so they needed an exact reproduction of their design.  No problem!  Here is the result:

Here’s what the customer had to say about the project:

“I am sending on some pictures of the balustrade I restored using the spindles you turned for me back in May.  The railing forms an overlook on top of our pumphouse. We think the original balustrade dates to about 1925.  The remaining balusters were original and were stripped of many layers of lead paint and refinished.  I saved one long section of top rail and the short section (they appear to be old growth, very tight grain fir and were in perfect shape except for one small area of rot I was able to fill with a dutchman that is now invisible under the paint.  Joints at the corner posts were made with pocket screws. (each post has a long 5/8″ bolt secured into the concrete deck, so they are like the Rock of Gibraltar!)  Your balusters fit perfectly in with the old and really made the project shine.  All of our 19 members love the results – It really adds to our waterfront scenery!  Thanks so much for your help and for being so easy to deal with!   Regards, …”