Blue Ox authentic wood balusters provide a custom touch to any home.

A custom balustrade, a widow's walk, a porch that is the envy of all your neighbors?  Blue Ox can make it. We have made hundreds of balustrades over the years and we do all of our turnings by hand so we can cut the stock to match any shape.

Our artisans will carefully plot out your design using the age old method of story-sticking.  The first few balusters turned tend to vary a bit, but the hundreds that follow will look almost identical because a craftsman's hands have memory.  Have your memorable balusters made at the Blue Ox Millworks!

Recently Completed Balustrades

Schramsberg Balustrade	Noyes Balustrade

Eric talks about wood balusters...

A balustrade is made up of Newel Posts, Top or Hand Rails, Bottom Rails and the Balusters.  Whether interior or exterior, it is the balusters that make up the visual bulk of the Balastrade assembly.  Balusters can be divided into three main categories, Turned, Fret Sawn, and Paperdoll.

(Above):  Cesar assembles a widow's walk for the Noyes Mansion (At left): These Blue Ox paper doll balusters adorn a Russian-style home in Boston.

Continued...

Turned wood balusters in the balustrade make up the vast majority of all traditional work in Victorian architecture. The turnings are almost infinite in design from the heavy Grecian urn style to the very delicate and slender beaded and tapered style.

(At right): This custom Blue Ox wood balustrade is made up of turned balusters, custom hand and bottom rail, newel posts and some custom turned finials from the lathe room.

This infinite variety of size and design can hearken images from Vikings yelling “More ale Beertenderous” to the long flowing skirts of Scarlet O’Hara in Gone With the Wind.

(At left): Custom turned wood balusters await the assembly of a widow's walk bound for Napa, California

The Fret Sawn baluster is any baluster of a square design with cutouts on four sides making up beads and coves. Although nowhere as abundant in the architectural word as turned balusters due to the complexity of manufacture the fret sawn baluster is elegant in the proper setting.

(At right): Just a few of the balusters from the wall of the Blue Ox lathe room.

The Paper doll (flat sawn) baluster is also fret sawn but out of 1” or 2” thick material with a width ranging from 4” to 8” wide. The interesting to note here is that it is not the design of the baluster that is important but the design of the space that the baluster leaves.

(At left): This sample of paper doll balustrade is actually part of the interior of the Blue Ox woodshop.  The O-X pattern is one of the more common paper doll patterns in Victorian architecture.  

No one will see the baluster itself but all will see the repeating negative space that is apparent when these balusters are put together.

(At right): With the paper doll (or flat sawn) baluster, the pattern that is picked up by the eye are the negative spaces between the balusters.  The balusters themselves are flat and fit into a groove cut into the hand rail and the bottom rail.  (Below): Two sets of wood balusters made by the Blue Ox Millworks.  The balustrade on the left is found at the Bauriedel home, a new custom Victorian that was featured in the August 2005 edition of Victorian Homes Magazine.

"To Stand Back and see the culmination of a couple weeks worth of custom turnings, special handrail and mouldings and custom newels all come together to form a beautiful balustrade -- now that's satisfaction!"

-Eric Hollenbeck (2005)

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