Help Wanted: Paid Commission Spindle Turning
Hi folks,
I’m looking for someone who can duplicate 3-5 stair rail spindles from a 1980’s townhouse here in Columbia. I can’t find any replacements on the open market. They seem to be a relatively simple design.
If there’s anyone interested in a small contract job, please hit me back. I think this may be something someone newer to woodworking could knock out.
I will supply the precut-to-size 1.25″ square by 34″ long poplar stock, drop off and pickup at a location of your choosing. The only requirement is to refer to a scale drawing to turn two short sections on each spindle, and sand smooth.
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I’m not capable of participating in this, but “not finding replacements on the open market” reminds me of a related experience I will share.
Back in the early 8o’s I was personally remodeling the small kitchen in our (then) Catonsville townhouse. Taking down the wall cabinets that extended to the ceiling, I damaged some of the crown molding that covered space between cabinet tops and ceiling. This was a house built in 1954, in which I was working approximately 30 years later.
Who would imagine that the particular crown molding pattern used in construction would ne “obsolete and out of production” so soon?
I got a quote from several lumber yards that recreation of same would cost (at that time) well over $100 in labor time in the setting up and then taking down the particular combination of cutter heads to reproduce that pattern, on less than $30 of stock for the short linear footage that I needed.
Needless to say, I dispensed with “1954 historical accuracy” and went with a less expensive “1980 modernist” look in molding.
Henry Fitzer