what i thought would be a good choice to replace these ballasters with are cedar now this is a cedar baluster two by two 36 inches long we bought them at the local lumber yard now as you know marty we're not going to fasten these balusters directly to the railing we want to first cut a nailing strip put one on the bottom and one on the top the first thing i need to do is get the length for that nailing strip so i'm going to measure the railing the second thing i need to do is get this angle the easiest way to get the angle is to use a sliding t-square or beveling square holding it up against the railing and the post tightening the wing nut now i can transfer this angle to the miter saw i'm going to turn my saw to match the angle with my beveling square that's 34 degrees all right let's see how this fits the bottom piece is perfect oh nice what i like to do tom is maintain the same spacing that we have up here on the deck with the railing down here on the stairs well that actually shouldn't be a problem marty what i'm interested in to do that is i need the center to center measurement and to get the center of the center measurement i'm going to measure from the left side of this baluster to the left side of this baluster which gives me four and five eighths that represents the center to center measurement what i want to do is round that off to five why five well five is an easier number to work with next thing we've done is i've clamped a baluster to the edge of the bottom of the pole bottom post keeping it flush on the inside what i'm going to do is i'm going to hook my tape on the left side of that baluster and go to the left side of this post which represents a baluster at the top i now have a number of 48 and 5 8 a very difficult number to divide into so what i simply do is take my tape and i swing it to 50. now i can easily divide that by five given equal spacing of every baluster down the stairway i see all right now if you want to hold this tape for me i'm going to show you what i'm going to do i need you to hold that on 50 hold it nice and tight now i'm simply going to take and i want you to hold it straight though it has to be straight okay on 50 and straight i'm simply going to take my level make it plumb i'm going to put it on 45 and i'm going to mark the side of my nail i'm going to go to 40 plum it mark the side now i'm going to put an x to the left because that's where i want to place the balusters i'm going to go all the way down and every five inch increment okay now with our bottom nailing strip marked i simply transfer those measurements to the top nailing strip and we're ready for balusters now the position of each baluster will be to the right of the line and to remind me of that i placed a little x or a tick mark next i want to cut the bottom of all of the balusters remember the angle of the railing is 34 degrees now i'm going to position our mounting strips on the top of the bottom railing both of them using them as a filler we'll take our balusters position them on the top of the mounting strip i will simply mark the underside of the top railing that gives us our length and we're ready to cut the top listen i want you to paint all six sides the top and the bottom are the most important because you want to stop that water from wicking sure what we're gonna use for paint you're gonna use an acrylic primer when that dries you're gonna use a latex top coat all right now while you're painting i'm gonna change our pencil lines to score lines so once these are painted the score lines will telegraph through the paint now i've pre-assembled the baluster system with some brads and now i'm screwing it together with some stainless steel screws all right line the bottom up i'm going to push the top in and straight down here you're right it fits like a glove now what now all i want to do is put some screws through the mounting strip on the bottom and the top and that will mount the balusters to the railing and you put a good finished coat of paint on there and you're in business