How can I change the spindles on my staircase?

[Deleted member 174758]

I suspect the will simply be skew nailed - a nail will be hammered in through the bottom of each spindle, at 45 degrees, into the face as you go up the stairs and a second one at the top, on the side which faces you as you go down. applied on top.

Easy way to confirm, if you are set on the idea, is to try knocking one out, hammer up hill at the top, down hill at the bottom of a spindle.

Yes. It's a modern staircase so the spindles are cut to an angle top and bottom, skew nailed in place and often (but not always) bevel sawn blocks installed between them, again nailed in place and nail heads punched under. Very often the underside of the handrail has a groove (a housing) machined in it to accommodate the spindles and spacer blocks, in which case your timber spacers will need to be sized to fit the groove as will your spindles. Same goes for the top of the stringer (i.e at the bottom of the spindles) - these often have a housed runner strip

The job requires a long enough spirit level (to get the plumb line - shorter level can "extended" by taping it to a longer, straight piece of 2 x 1 PSE softwood), a sliding bevel (to transfer the angle to the material/saw), a try square or combi square, a tape measure, a saw, a hammer and a nail set. Optionally, a mitre saw makes the job of cutting the bevels faster, more accurate and more repeatable than using a hand saw freehand

I'd caution against using the existing spindles as a template - you'd be surprised at how often they are out of plumb!

Be thankful it isn't an older stair with the spindles mortised into the top of the strimger and the underside of the handrail. They can be a royal pain to deal with.

As for the newel post - the bottom of the stair stringer is mortised into this and the lowest step tread and riser (and maybe a bit more) are housed into the back of thd newel post. I have to admit that I havedine full replacements in the past, but it takes a good tool kit, accuracy and more than a bit of experience. There are two possible options though, which are easy-ish and a bit harder; the easy option is to box it in with sheet material such as 12mm MDF to create a square newel post and add a cap or finial on top - the harder option is to saw off the newel post at the top of the lowest square mark the centre, bore large diameter hole vertically to tape a new newel post top, then replace the newel post top with a new one (these sometimes come with the bottom ready drilled and a new large diameter dowel supplied). The catch with doing any work like this is thst if you change size of the newel post to a smaller one you may need to replace the handrail. The other catch with doing work on newel posts concerns how they are connected to the handrail - they aren't (or rather shouldn't be) nailed - they are often dowelled in modern work, but there are all kinds of other joints which are used

 

[conny]

To remove my old ones many years ago I simply sawed through the spindles near the centre then bent the top ones to the right and the bottom s to the left. The angled cut at each end acted as a fulcrum and pulled most of the nails out as the spindle came away. Just a matter of removing the nails that didn't come out and a bit of sanding to tidy up before fitting the new ones. I cut the new ones to size and numbered them on the ends as to what position they went, starting with number 1 at the bottom, (don't ask why, I just did). I also pre painted them on the bench before fitting as trying to paint all sides after fitting was a pain in the backside. Just touch up the paintwork where you have nailed/screwed them into position.

 

[Tigercubrider]

Google videos for banister diy replacement to give yourself an idea of how replacements work
It isn’t rocket science but buy a couple of spare spindles and cut one or two at a time and do the longer ones first.
Mistakes can go in smaller slots

personally it looks fine