By John Flanagan
Please read my previous blog Brick Wall as Railing Part 1 for an introduction. In this Part 2 we will look at Baluster Placement and creating the Start, End and corner posts with a capping stone. The first thing we will do is create a new Baluster Post Family using the Metric Baluster Post template.
Fig 1: Floor Plan View – Create Extrusion
In a floor plan view in the Family Editor, create a 400 x 400mm (approx) extrusion for the brick post to be inserted into wall.
Switch to an elevation view and lock the top and bottom of the post to reference planes and attach a brick material. Apply/OK, save as Brick Post and load into the railing project created in my previous blog Part 1.
Fig 2: Front Elevation
Back in the project, select the railing and click Edit Type. In the Edit Type dialogue box, click Edit Baluster Placement.
Fig 3: Edit Baluster Placement
In the top half of the dialogue box make some adjustments as shown. Select line 2 and duplicate it several times (approx: 6 to 10). Leave the distance from previous at 275mm, but change line 2 Baluster Family to Brick Post (the one you loaded earlier). For row three change the distance from previous to 400mm.
Fig 4: Edit Baluster Placement – Main Pattern
In the bottom half of the dialogue box make the necessary adjustments as shown.
Fig 5: Edit Baluster Placement Main Pattern – Posts
Click Apply/OK and in Properties change the rail height to 1600mm. Next open the Brick post family again to make another adjustment. Extent the post above the top of rail reference plane and constrain it with a locked dimension as shown.
If you want to you can add a concrete capstone to the top of the brick post with a simple rectangular extrusion.
Load back into your project and override the existing. Now try out your new parametric brick property railing.
If the posts don’t go all the way to the bottom of the low wall, just go into the family editor and extend the bottom of the post downwards by 400mm (the height of the low brick wall).