That will be awesome and if you don't mind sharing the cost of the waterside deck project? PM be fine too.
Thanks
Here are a few pics. Sorry for the quality, but it was a gray Puget Sound morning.
I used the existing 4x4 posts, just made a jig and drilled 1/4" holes from both sides. Elected not to use cable thimbles, they looked too bulky. There isn't a lot of load on the cables, anyway.
Tensioning is easy- just don't try to tighten them all up like a bowstring- you need them to be taut, if you go too tight you'll never get them to stay tight. Mine really haven't moved, but would be easy to tighten if necessary.
The deck, stairs and interior cable rail took 1800' of 1/8" Stainless Cable.
I bought it on eBay, the brown truck guy rolled a spool down my driveway a week later. Stainless eyebolts were ordered on Amazon, nuts, washers, cap nuts, crimp fittings on eBay. I think I spent less than $500 replacing the exterior wood pickets with cable.
I screwed in SS lag eyes on the static end (get a eyebolt driver for your drill, it'll save a lot of work- but then, I had a couple of hundred of them to drive) install and crimp the cable, then do the same on the tension end, with a washer under the SS nut. I found it was helpful to run all the SS hardware in the same depth, that way when you tension the cable they all look the same.
Take your time swaging, you need to pull the cables fairly tight so the eyebolts end up in the same place when you finish-tighten them. When you finish a section, tension the cable by tightening the SS eyebolts, then run a second hex nut on the threads. Cut the exposed threads with a cutoff wheel, then remove the hex nut and replace with a SS finish cap nut. Angled spacers are available for stairs. Final step was to trim off the excess cable on the swaged fittings with a reinforced cutoff wheel in the Dremel- be careful not to nick the good cable. I tucked a little piece of aluminum in next to the swage fitting so I wouldn't nick the cable that remains. Takes longer to describe than to do it.
On the interior, the fittings are all hidden- you could do the exterior the same way as well-and same quite a bit of money (We liked the industrial look for the outside railings so we went with eyebolts. )
To make the hidden fittings all I did was cut the head off a common 1/4" hex bolt, chuck it in my little hobby lathe and center drill a 9/64" hole a little over an inch deep. The 1/8" SS cable slips right in and gets swaged with my $30 HD cable swager. You can use the head you cut off for a static anchor fitting if you leave enough shank to drill and swage.
I did spring for a good set of MIDWEST cable cutters- essential to get a clean cut on the SS cable. Malco makes a good cable cutter as well.
PM me if you'd like me dig up the ebay sellers and the Amazon link for the eyebolts. If you use hidden fittings you can probably just buy 1/4" hex bolts locally. (If you don't have a lathe you can probably figure out how to drill them in a drill press)or if you have any questions.
How much are they, $15/ea?