Adding a railing to a staircase

SketchUp
1

Hi,

I’m a beginner trying to add a railing to my staircase. I’m trying to upload an image, but the site says the max. upload file size is 5 KB (seems ridiculously small unless I’m doing something wrong). I tried doing something like it shows here:
http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?22655-DIY-Railing-in-SketchUp
But I’m having a few issues:

  1. I can’t seem to get the railing cross section perpendicular to the extruding line.
  2. I have a circular staircase (not spiral) so ideally I’d like the follow me tool to extrude around a curved line, but I’m not sure how to connect the tops of my banisters in a curve.

Thanks for your help.

2

the forums having problems as well, so a quick gif is out of the question…

you can draw one, rotate copies and move them up one at a time to get the curve rise…

then draw a flat line on axis at the first to add the profile. push it in when done…

john

3

@edhalsim

I would usually advise folks to lean on SketchUp’s base modeling tools in order for them to become more a proficient SketchUp user… but in this case, I will point you to a few extensions that will help you get what you need relatively quickly.

To get your profile face lined up correctly with your extrusion path, check out this simple extension by Chris Fullmer

https://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/clf-perpendicular-face-tools

FollowMe doesn’t work well when the profile has to stay upright on a curve that changes in the Z direction. You may find that as the extrusion turns and moves in the the Z direction, the extrusion tends to twist.

Check out this extension that helps keep the profile upright in the extrusion process

https://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/eneroth-upright-extruder

Cheers
CD

4

Thanks for your reply. That’s exactly what I’ve been seeing; as I do the extrusion the profile twists rather than staying vertical. I’ll check out these extensions and report back if I’m still having issues.