Steel Cable Railing

Here's our steel cable railing around the big opening in the 1st floor ceiling. The newell posts are 4 tree trunks, all from trees that were already down, and we had no hand in their demise. One cherry and 2 trunks from the same live oak I got by a "wanted" request on Craigslist, and one pine from my neighbors. The wood frame for the railing is from old, rough-sawn heartpine wall studs from a house demolished in northeast Gainesville. I had the tree trunks kiln dried, and the pine studs tented, so we don't bring in any unwelcome guests. After learning how darn expensive decent turnbuckles are, I got the idea of a turnbuckle-less cable rail system from a local, Dick, who I frequently see at a breakfast joint in town. The system consists of 1/8" 9x17 stainless steel cable, 3/8" rough (16) threaded rod that goes through the tree posts, a coupler that joins to a lifting eye bolt, a thimble inside the eye bolt to hold the cable loop, 5/8" ferrule (oval sleeve) that can be crimped in two places, and then the tightening system is simply leaving enough extra rod on the inside of the tree so it can be moved outward by turning a hex finishing nut against a flat washer that's inset into the outside of the tree, capped off with an acorn nut. Upon tightening the cable, the excess rod sticking out the outside of the tree can be trimmed with a sawzall, and capped back with the acorn nut. Crude, simple, and about $2,000 less expensive than with turnbuckles. I installed the cable railing with my friend Eugene, and finished it by myself without a come-along or even pulling the cable very tight - the key was leaving extra room on the threaded rod, and everything then tightened up with a ratchet, with still more room to spare for future tightening as the cable stretches over time. The railing came out better than I even thought it might.