Several small drawings of sample deck railing layouts.

In a normal 36" high residential high railing you will use 10 cables (3" spacing) unless you install some type of a bottom rail. It could be a 2x4 on edge, welded metal or the lower part of the familiar aluminum frame that is so popular with glass systems. Adding the bottom rail usually reduces the amount of cables to 8. Both of the above decks are within the range of using only one cable for the entire run (56 ft.), but the 4 each 90 degree corners on the second would normally cause a cable tensioning problem with the compounding friction of all the turns. We would plan on stopping and starting the cables at point "D" on the second drawing which would add one fitting for each cable end. Eight cables would add 16 fittings and 10 of course would add 20 fittings with the associated increase in overall cost and rise in cost per linear ft. of the cable package. Examples below.

There are several ways to handle these decks:

1. You could use threaded studs on each end of the left deck giving one adjustment at each end, but you need to be able to get to the back side of the posts to tighten the nuts and cut off the excess stud. (Need some space between post and house wall.)
2. On the right deck you could use the same fittings at each start and or stop point which would double the fittings used since you are stopping and starting the cable run at corner "D".

Some rough pricing based on the additional stop and start at point "D" would be as follows just for reference which includes: cable, fittings, all hardware + extras, special stainless sleeves if using wooden posts and eight (8) cables:

First deck approx. $465.00 and with 56 ft. the cost per ft. is $8.30 (this should be a lot less expensive than glass and it doesn't break.....).

Second Deck approx. $665.00 with about the same 56 ft. or $11.88 per ft. (be careful with linear ft. pricing).

If using aluminum posts or other metal posts you would add approx. $35.00 for the special grommets we use in the posts to allow the cable to move freely and protect the cable and posts from rubbing each other.
With each stop and start point you can easily see the affect it has on cost per linear ft. of the overall cable run. Since you can use the same fittings for a 4 ft. run as on a 56 ft. run, it should be obvious that the longer you can run a single cable the less your cost per ft. would be as the budget figures above show. We will be adding a price listing for various assemblies with a graph to show how the price varies with length of cable run. We are happy to assist you with your layout. If you are a contractor and will be doing additional cable installations, we will help you learn the basics so you can easily bid the more normal applications. You should consider buying a few basic tools also so you can easily perform the work and be at ease with cable. We find it to be great, it doesn't break on installation like glass can do and ruin your day plus it looks very nice when done. There are no bird strikes, no glass to clean or replace after some errant rock from a lawnmower hits it or some child gets rambunctious with their toy hammer.

The deck on the left adds a stairway. Actually this is pretty simple. You can go from "D" to "G" on one run and from "A" to "C" at the bottom of the stairs in another run. The one to the right is a different story. It came to us in a broken cadd drawing and after several discussions with the contractor we ended up with this format. We found that it is important to let us know how the railing connects if there are odd angles, stairs, landings or even separate smaller decks so we are able to connect the dots and understand what you are giving us to work with and help you plan your cable layout. We are working on two or three cable runs on this one.

It is one we have just made up for a customer north of Seattle, WA.

Note the curve and different level of the main deck. We decided with the contractors concurrence to have three runs of cable. The first was from "A" through "B" down two steps stopping at "C". The second went from "H" around the arc ending at "D". We installed a turnbuckle in the four ft. section at the head of the stairs to be able to aid in the adjusting around "G", the arc and the corner at "E" since we used a "Deck Toggle" at "H" where we couldn't use a fitting that went through the post as you would with a normal "Threaded Stud". This is because we had to use the "Deck Toggle" again to start down the stairway from point "H" (other side of same post) to give us the ability to angle the cable down the stairway. The contractor elected to have a turnbuckle in the last bay at the bottom of the stairway to eliminate an angle hole and protruding hardware on the bottom side of the last post at "J". Remember that you need at least one adjusting element (fitting) in each run. The type and number is the real issue.