Hey guys! so I always have this problem with stairs and wanted to learn how I can tackle this solution where having a railing of such angled to the stair size you have and then joining the top rail together so that it looks like one continuous piece even though I know glass partitions are usually in 4 ft increments. How would be the best way to do this? I know online they already have angled railings but they are different from the one I chose and I really wanted to learn this on my own rather than take someone elses!
Hi @Steven_Napoli, the condition you describe is one of the more difficult design challenges in building design. Your glass guards are looking good so far. The process I follow is:
-
draw a guide line with the Protractor tool which starts at the first stair nosing and intersects with the furthest stair nosing in your stair run. (The drawing below substitutes a red transparent plane for the line to be easier to see in this post.
-
then draw your glass guard as a parallelogram, with the bottom and top edges parallel to the stair nosing and the sides parallel with the z axis (Also, seen above as a partial red transparent plane).
Your modeling can then continue in this “parallelogram” fashion for the different elements of your guard.
- Now the next part, the design of the intersection of the stair guard with the balcony guards at either end of the stair guard. Some designers will desire a smooth “angled” intersection others will use a vertical “step”, even others will introduce a third element (eg a large round cylinder) to make the transition. This decision by the designer is partly driven by aesthetics and partly by code requirements. The next attachment shows a “step” solution on my part for this project.
The drawings above do not show a handrail. This is for clarity. Handrails have a separate set of code requirements when they are modeled.
Good luck.
3 Likes
Thanks so much for the explanation I will try it step by step! Also how would i push pull the nosing equally on all these corners? I have Fredo’s joint push pull but I’m not sure which one would be the appropriate one to use since I’m not an expert on the joint push pull. In this case it would be 2 corners and 2 straight edges as shown in my picture. 
You are very welcome.
I am not familiar with Fredo’s joint push/pull, but I will now look up for myself.
The method I currently use would be the Offset Tool and Push/pull in plan view.
Another thought, depending on how much detail you desire, is to use the native Push/Pull and use a double line as your nosing without a 3D lip extension (as you show in your screen shot).
+1 on Joint Push Pull
Two ways of doing it.
Native tools, no plugin by the Offset Tool:
Or with Joint Push Pull:
(BTW, the reason I click first with the wrong dimension and then type the right one is because I use a Wacom tablet.)
3 Likes
Your screenshot suggests you may be using layers incorrectly, read up on layers here.
1 Like
Or you can use Follow Me after creating a nosing profile. This has the advantage that you can use it for bull noses or more complex shapes.
4 Likes
I see you have the active layer not on the so called default Layer0, have you ever had any any issues comparing to other CAD programs?
In SketchUp , one can not isolate geometry through layers, only by groups and components, edges and faces remain usually on the default layer and the isolated groups are assigned to layers for visibility reasons.