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As Mark stated above, we recently finished an cable rail install with Ipe posts.

To say it was ridiculously painful would be an understatement.

Although I fabricated a jig to drill all the posts with the proper holes and spacing, it was INCREDIBLY slow prepping the posts. You cannot just drill through an Ipe 4x4 in one pass like you could in any other material. You have to up and down the drill bit probably 15 times a hole to clear the flutes.

Then a bit breaks inside your post. Then you break another one no matter how careful you are. Now you have to try to save the post and remove the broken bit. It's hard to do.

You are dealing with very tight tolerances and it's just miserable to do with Ipe.

Every post has at least 10 THROUGH holes. Some posts have 40 holes.

Did I mention it's painfullly slow?

When you finally get to installing the cables, that is slow too. Unless you get pre-swaged fittings. We swaged on site and that took forever too. Three swages per fitting TIMES 10 per run. The swaging is physically tough to do (you have to crank on the tool) so it goes slow.

If you get a bad fitting, you are screwed. The stainless is very prone to galling and bad threading.

I would do it again, but not with Ipe unless I figured 2 hours at least per post prep time.

I see you guys talking about doing it with post sleeves and I'm laughing because I can't imagine trying to do it with a post sleeve. Talk about asking for trouble. Any void in the sleeve and post would instantly deform/crack the sleeve because of the tension applied by the fittings.

I'm sure it's possible to do, but bid accordingly because it's not going to be 1-2-3.

BTW, I purchased from Max as well and he was a good guy. We had some hiccups along the way because he didn't spec a few things correctly from my drawing, but in the end, we got it done.
 

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Our last remodel the owner wanted cable rail. After researching we ended up using Feeney. It was a PITA fishing the cable through the corner posts. Looks good, but I personally would not want them in a house with small kids. They'll be climbing these within a couple years.

We are still waiting on the owner to pick out some heart pine to finish the top rail.

Handrail Hardwood Floor Stairs Wood flooring
 
Greg after thinking about it I am really glad I dident get that job, I hate to turn anything down and I like something new but what a pain that would have been with composite. Becides the rail looks like a stock fence.

I was going to look around for a long shank forstner to drill the holes. J.
 
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