Stylish, durable and virtually maintenance free, Color Guard Premium Vinyl Railing is the go-to choice for professionals and DIYers alike to add style and functionality to any outdoor living space.
While it’s known for being the simplest and quickest railing install in the industry, we do have a couple hacks to make installation even easier.
These secret tricks of the trade will be the subject of today’s program –5 Tips & Tricks for Color Guard Premium Vinyl Railing. Color Guard’s resident expert, Kyle Blindauer, will demonstrate 5 WAYS you can make installing our Premium Vinyl Railing even easier, including:
1. Using spacers to get the right height every time
2. Removing an extra baluster hole and cutting top and bottom rails equally
3. Center and screw in rails
4. The right way to install balusters (without going crazy!)
5. Caps, Collars and Time Travel
To learn more watch below.
Transcript
Eric [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to today’s Lunch and Learn webinar by Color Guard. We’re doing things a little different today. It’s, it’s a beautiful day outside. So, we decided to do the introduction out here because we are recording this instead of going live. We’re doing this because a lot of people are working right now. You know, you don’t want to take a lunch break. You want to get your job done and get home to your family and your kids and your fun. So, we decided to record this one and make it available on demand. Now, I know that that means we also don’t have the Q&A at the end, which we’re sorry about, that we always get some great questions for you. But what we’ve done, if you see in the description, we’ve set up a special link where you can email Kyle questions directly to him. He didn’t know that until right now. So, today’s webinar is Five Tips and Tricks for Installing Vinyl Railing. Kyle is going to be walking you through some really great stuff. We do have to shoot that part inside, so let’s go take a look.
Kyle [00:01:22] We have railing sections that have two-inch under-rail spacing and four-inch under-rail spacing. In this particular instance, we’re using something with four and spacing. I did, so I cut to two by fours at four inches tall. Okay, so you put those underneath your rail. Now your under-rail height will be accurate and consistent.
Kyle [00:01:50] So here, if you notice both of my holes, clear the posts. Okay, but that gap is so small, that’s not going to accommodate our brackets. Right. Okay. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to take a hole out. So I’m going to take this hole and I’m going to put it beyond the post. And then I’m going take a measurement. It’s a measure from the polls to the first poll. I’ve got roughly three and a half here, and I’m a measure of the distance on the other side, and I’m not quite three and a three and a quarter here. So, I’m going to move the rail this way just a little bit. So about three in a quarter there. And I’m about three and a quarter there. Perfect. So now. We’re going to mark our rail for cutting. And now we’re ready to show you the next step. This particular section uses architectural balusters. Okay, so these are turn, but since we’ve taken a whole load, we’re going to have an excess baluster. Okay. So what you can do is cut a small piece of baluster about it’s about three inches in height (let’s say two and seven eights), and then you’re going to put that into your rail somewhere in the middle. And then we’ll set our top rule on top of that. And that will allow us to cut both rails at the same time. So what I want to do here really quick before ready to cut is I’m going to lay the rails on their side. I’m going to extend my mark on the side here so I can see what I’m doing. Yeah. So there’s my cut one. And there’s going me my cut, too. And now we’re ready to cut our rail. Sure. Second thought. But I’m going to push the aluminum out a quarter to half an inch here and I’ll explain why in a little while. So now that we’re back here by our posts, the reason why I took out quarter to a half an inch of aluminum is so that on this end and this end, the aluminum isn’t all the way up to the edge. And the reason why we do that is because if you have the aluminum all the way up to the edge and you’re inserting it in your opening, there’s a good chance you’re going to scuff the posts. Okay. So that gives you posts, nice and clean and you won’t have to worry about scuffing it later.
Kyle [00:05:10] One of the many features and benefits of our system is our bottom rail brackets have angled mounting positions, and I’ll show you the advantage to that in just a second as we go to install it.
Eric [00:05:25] And here’s where those spacers come in.
Kyle [00:05:38] If I were trying to go on straight here, especially if I’m in a two-inch gap, that becomes a pretty, pretty challenging situation. Okay. So now I don’t have to do that. I can go in on the angle right here. And since we’re installing on to a Newel post in a Patriot Post, we’re going to run our screw and back it out and then finish running it in to relieve the tension against the vinyl filler that’s inside of there. See how it relieves attention on that. And again, when you’re installing with Patriot Post or Newel Post vinyl railing, you start over towards one side as you’re on the center or center like bracket for you and just snug it up. Don’t have to run it in there. Just nice and snug. Now we don’t snap off the mounting points. We recommend not using a hammer drill for this part of the installation. Look how easy that was.
Kyle [00:06:43] With the architectural baluster. There’s a right way and a wrong way to install it. Okay? The right way is with the larger spindle, the larger part of the turn at the bottom. The shorter turn at the top. So now we’re ready to put our top rail up and start by flying the brackets over the two ends. And again, I’m just going to verify that my aluminum is not out there, which it’s not on either end. So we don’t mar up the post.
Eric [00:07:53] Oh. No. I must have watched about 30 times. Is there a trick to doing this without having the last one pop out?
Kyle [00:08:09] There is just patience and making sure that you don’t have this end all the way down. Make sure that it’s just nestled in there. Don’t wham this down right away if you don’t have to have it. Just walk it all the way down. All the way out. Make sure we’re down and snug on there. And already attached the top rail. See how that tension backs off? Now we can finish running it in. And now we’re ready to put our caps and collars. Well, that’s not going to work.
Can we hit the rewind button?
Kyle [00:09:23] Before installing your post sleeve, slide the collar over your wood post or in this case our Patriot Post mount, then install the post sleeve. Being sure to slide it into the collar.
Kyle [00:09:42] So if you don’t have a rewind button, we do offer a two piece color solution to help avoid that kind of situation. Our two piece coloring solves very easily. Put the cap on, and you’re done.
Eric [00:10:04] All right. Thank you for watching today. We really appreciate you checking this out. Remember the description below. We have a link to ask Kyle questions about any Color Guard product and pretty much anything. Just throw some really cool stuff like and subscribe to follow our future videos. Kyle, any final thoughts on today?
Kyle [00:10:22] Thanks for spending time with us today. Hopefully that was helpful. You got any other suggestions for videos? Shoot tomorrow.
Eric [00:10:27] All right. Thanks, guys. Enjoy this great weather. We’ll see you soon.
