Hi Duyane,

I’ve found that using 3D modeling  in CAD has a lot of advantages, but of course this is only my personal opinion.

Everyone should choose the techniques that he feels the most adapted and simplicity can often be a question of habit.

The important thing is to get the job done as best as possible using techniques that you feel comfortable with.

All the best,

Ness

Hi Duayne,

OK, I see that you are talking about the 2 ways of drawing the ellipses.

If you use a 3D CAD program as I describe in my eBook, then the face moulds and twist angles are generated automatically by the 3D model.

You can down load this eBook free from the Wood Designer library here:

https://wooddesigner.org/support/ebooks/

All the best,

Ness

Hi Duyane,

What 2 methods do you mean?

All the best,

Ness

Hi Scott,

Here is a cool article by Jim Baldwin on tangent handrailing :

https://www.thisiscarpentry.co…..-handrail/

Jim is certainly on of the authorities on this technique and his name will appear regularly if you make a search on tangent handrailing.

Here’s another interesting discussion on the subject:

https://forums.jlconline.com/f…..atic-solid

In fact surprisingly, for such an esoteric subject,  there is quite a lot of useful information on the internet as well as books available on Amazon.

So although it takes a bit of perseverance to understand the geometry once understood and practiced the actual drawing of the face moulds is straight forwards. The trickiest part is usually the carving and the moulding of the wreath.

This is made more complicated from the geometrical section that is generated by the technique where the actual section perpendicular to the rake is truly not square.

Today we prefer to make handrails using laminated sections, this builds a rail whose section perpendicular to the rake is square so moulding is much easier as well as the technique doesn’t require marking out at all.

https://wooddesigner.org/how-m…..-1st-part/

https://wooddesigner.org/how-m…..il-part-2/

https://wooddesigner.org/how-t…..-3rd-part/

This makes making a wreathed rail faster and easier, but of course doesn’t give the craftsmen’s satisfaction of  carving a real solid wood tangent rail.

Hope this is helpful.

Good luck with your handrailing and don’t hesitate to post any questions if we can be of help.

I’d love to see your work if you have any photos…

All the best,

Ness