Beginner's Question: Joining Handrails

Hey Guys, I tried to search, but maybe I'm doing a bad job, tried the forum, youtube and google.

I have this spiral staircase I'm working on, its my first 3d job, but now here's the issue, i have this weird halfway 90 degree step, and here's where my handrail gets funky.

Now I'm wondering if there's a nice clean way to join all of these handrails or at least just the bottom and top two. I thought I stumbled upon a button I pressed that seemed to do it, but I must have been an idiot clicked out of it, and wasn't able to backtrack.

Please point me in the right direction if this has been answered before, like I said this is my first 3d design.

v2 P3 Solano Prado 3D.dwg

Welcome to CADTutor.

Interesting or strange?

One or the other, maybe both.

I have never seen a landing in a circular stair case, and am curious if this is meant to be an architectural design element, or an attempt to fudge, so as to align the top landing with your intended location?

I notice that the centerlines of your horizontal elements (treads and landing) are not aligned to the center of the support column, which is the norm, and would make alignment of the different elements easier.

I am too busy to play around with this, but I would also say that you have done pretty well so far, and that the railing would be much easier if it was oriented relative to the common center point of the column and helix. Your issue seems to be more of an alignment one than joining, as you can clearly see that even if joined, they would look less than stellar. Once the alignmenet is fixed, joining them becomes much easier, and the joints become smooth.

I would probably use the sweep with PATH option for the handrail, and the path would be defined by two helixes connected by an arc, and all of them would be joined using the PEDIT command. Once you have that path defined as a continuous object, doing the rail should be much easier. Concentricity is a good thing.

In other news the handrail looks like it would not be to code as it appears to be too wide.

Hey guys, thanks for the responses, they were quick too, About the landing, im not sure the reason for it, I think the engineer said something about needing it to have enough clearance height to comply with certain codes.

I tried the sweep with path option and that's how I created that center rail and the helix rails for that matter, but my problem becomes making the whole rail for the staircase flow as a single unit.

Ill try the Pedit, but i can't seem to make a continuous path along the whole staircase :/

man I could've sworn I had a button that for a split second merged these rails how I wanted if only I knew which one....

I think Dadgad covered the how to, I would like to add that the distance from the edge of that large step up to the step above will be very short, causing a head bump situation. This is one of the reasons you don't see a landing on a spiral stair case, or not without really large step rise throughout the stairs.

Those stair treads appear to be rather thick (5.00). What is the material of construction?

I have a set of circular stairs in my house and they are constructed out of steel. The stair treads are diamond plate and they are approximately 3/16" thick.

You did not address Dadgad's concerns regarding the centerlines of your stair treads. Why are the centerlines offset from the centerline of the vertical support?

There is no magic button for "merging" the handrails that would fix the bump. The UNION command would however join sections of handrail but I think you need to fix the design first based on comments above before proceeding any further.

You also did not comment regarding the width of the handrail. Where are you located that a handrail that wide would be acceptable? BTW...all three sections of handrail appear to have different widths. Why? And the thickness of each section of handrail is not the same. I would suggest that you consider a pipe rail (circular) as opposed to a rectangular rail and make the balusters smaller than the 2x2's you are currently using.

The two posts on the landing are not the same size as the other posts and they appear to extend through the stair tread to the bottom instead of ending at the top. Why? I don't think the two posts are located correctly either in relation to the posts on the other treads.

There seems to be some slight variation in the height between stair treads and an average height of 9.27 seems a bit high don't you think. How did you arrive at that number and how did you physically place each stair tread in your drawing?

Are you a student?

This is how I think the stair treads should appear.

In the image below your design is on the left in white with a red line starting at the center of the vertical post passing through the end of each triangular stair tread. Notice how the line meanders. In my version on the right in green the white line that starts at the center of the vertical post also passes through the end of each triangular stair tread. However, notice that the line is straight (no meandering). Each tread starts on the centerline of the post.

One other thing. In my opinion the back edge of the stair tread should line up vertically with the front edge of the stair tread above. I think it would be unsafe for there to be a gap between the two especially when someone is coming down the stairs.

for your first 3D job I am impressed.

take the other posters advise and you should get it right soon.

No response? I guess the OP changed his mind about the project.

I'm not sure why its off-center, and the handrail is RT 4x2, I'm in Florida and yeah I am a student. But thanks for the replies guys idk what the stairs are made from though.

A student? Then this project is for a class? How would you not know the material of construction?

I'm pretty sure that the handrail would not meet code.

You've neglected to address the other concerns I've brought up. I guess you're going to ignore them and push on ahead regardless?

Maybe a little late on this one, but if you're in Florida, where you have to get a permit just to get a permit to build anything....I'd look at this a little more carefully, unless it's just an exercise. The building codes in Florida are quite strict, especially when it comes to stairs and other means of egress.

I'm curious too why you would want so many landings. By code you can't go over 144" in elevation without having a landing, that's so tired old guys like me can catch my breath after climbing up 12 ft of stairs. But to build a spiral stair that's more than even just 120" is a spindly issue that requires more reinforcing than one would think.

My $0.05 Interesting comments and understand Bills height question you would probably have to turn 180 before starting next flight to meet code. There is a spectacular spiral staircase in a multi story building here in Melbourne around ten stories but it has landing every floor "re 180" and has a central void rather than a central pole. How do I know its all glass on the outside. Google "pier luigi nervi" amazing stairs

A client I did work for a few years ago built a totally self-supporting spiral staircase with glass and stainless steel. It was just under the 144" limit so there was no landing. But this thing had massive rolled plates for stringers and no center support post. When it was installed and trimmed out it literally takes your breath away. It was for some millionaire's residence on the beach. The stairs alone cost over $100K. Too rich for my neighborhood I'm afraid.

yeah we did some stuff for a stair company they had an idea to use 100mm thick fabricated structural treads each tread bolted to the next a reverse spiral was their aim only held at top and bottom of stair.