How a wreathed handrail is actually made

A continuous handrail flows over the newels in one unbroken line. What that is, and why it costs more, is covered on the continuous and wreathed handrails page. The curved pieces that make the flow possible are the wreaths, and making one is widely held to be the hardest single job in stair joinery. This is how it is actually done.

Setting it out: the tangent method

You cannot measure a wreath off the stair, because it curves in two directions at once and no straight rule follows it. Instead it is set out by geometry, using what joiners call the tangent method. From an accurate plan of the turn and an elevation showing the rise, the wreath is treated as part of an imaginary cylinder, and tangent lines are drawn to it. By projecting those lines, the way an engineering drawing projects a solid onto a flat page, the joiner develops the true shape of the curve as if it were laid out flat. The result is a pattern. Getting this geometry right is the whole game, because a small error here becomes a visible kink or a poor joint in the finished rail.

Face mould and falling mould

The set-out produces two moulds. The face mould is the shape seen looking down on the wreath in plan, and it is used to mark the curve onto the top of the blank so it can be bandsawn out. The falling mould is the shape seen from the side, and it governs how the piece rises and twists as it turns. Working to both is what turns a flat, sawn curve into a rail that sweeps round the corner and climbs at the same time. This is the step that separates a proper wreath from a bent-looking approximation.

From mould to rail

With the moulds made, the wreath is cut from a blank, either a solid piece of hardwood or a stack of thin laminations glued up over a former to the rough curve. The face-mould shape is marked on top and bandsawn. Then the real skill begins: the piece is twisted and shaped to the falling mould, the handrail moulding is worked around its curved length so it matches the straight rail it will join, and the faces are cleaned up by hand. Finally the wreath is jointed to the straight lengths and the fittings, usually with a handrail bolt, so the joins pull up tight. Done well, you cannot easily see where one piece ends and the next begins.

Volutes, goosenecks and turnouts

Wreathing is also how the decorative fittings are formed. A volute, sometimes called a monkey tail, is the spiral scroll that curls the handrail over the first newel at the bottom of the stair. A turnout is a gentler quarter-scroll doing a similar job. A gooseneck is the vertical-then-over curve that lifts the rail up and over at a half-landing so the run continues at the new height. Each is a small wreath in its own right, set out by the same geometry, and each is a chance to see how good the maker is.

By hand or by machine

Traditionally every wreath was set out and cut by hand, and the best hand work is still regarded as the finest, partly because a skilled maker can bring the whole rail together with very few joints. Today a lot of wreathing, including some of the most complex shapes, is cut on five-axis CNC machinery, which is genuinely good and can hold shapes that would defeat most hands. Neither is a con. What matters is the result: look at the joints, at the fairness of the curve when you sight along it, and at whether the moulding runs true around the bends. A good wreath, by hand or machine, reads as one continuous flowing rail.

Why it is worth it

A wreathed handrail is taken as a mark of a properly made staircase because it cannot be faked or bought in a box: it is set out, cut and finished for one specific stair. It belongs on curved and turned stairs and on quality feature staircases, and it is inseparable from the geometric staircase, the curved, newel-less structure a continuous rail was made for. It also sits alongside the everyday profile choices on the handrail profiles page. However fine the joinery, the finished rail still has to sit at the regulated height and be comfortable to grip all the way round, as on the handrail requirements page.