Painting and installing interior handrail

After letting the glue dry overnight, I applied 1 coat of primer to the unfinished pine.  After letting that dry for a day, i applied 2 coats of Sherwin Williams Pro Classic paint.

wet primer coat

I let the paint dry 24 hours for each coat.  The paint was ok to touch after 4 hours, and I was able to move the piece indoors for the remain dry duration.

using two outdoor chairs to raise piece

The piece was about 130 inches long, so 4 stair rail hardware mounts were need to support at every 3 1/2 feet.  There's no hard and fast rule for how many mounts are needed, but definitely not just one at top and bottom in this case.

Make sure you orient the hardware in the same direction at the return.  Also, double check the distance from the wall mount to the rail is greater than the return.  If you, you'll be fighting the return piece against the wall while trying to mount, which would be terrible.

Also, the screws are left out of the wood just enough to hold the angle adjustable onto the rail, but still allow for free movement of the mount angle.

Painters was used to mark 36" from the nose of the steps along the staircase.  This was the guide used to place the rail at the correct, building code height.  Notice the mounting bracket is not located where the tape is, since it was already mounted to the rail before attaching to the wall.  I was lucky in this case, since I knew that there's a 3/4 piece of plywood all along the wall behind the drywall, I didn't have to deal with spaced wood studs.

The mounting bracket is adjusted to plumb, not the handrail.  I think this is one of the small differences to give the entire handrail a much more professional look!