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How To: Measuring For Glass U-Channel & Base Rail


To help you get exact measurements for your new glass railing system, we’ve sent you a glass railing measuring kit, this kit includes:

  • Post Layout Drawing
  • Template Guide
  • Wood Screws
  • Acrylic

Our plan is to help you gather the correct measurements seamlessly, so we can send them off to our engineering team quickly!

Step 1 – Identify Your First Run

In order to begin measuring for your new glass railing system, you’ll need to identify your first run. Inside the glass railing measuring kit there is a post layout drawing. Take that glass railing sheet and look for run #1. Once you find it, locate it on your deck so that you’re prepared for the next step.

Step 2 – How to Use the Base Rail Templates

In the base rail measuring kit there are two acrylic templates:

  • Acrylic piece for a Straight Run
  • Acrylic piece for a Corn termination

The Goal: Assuming there’s an overhang, we want to position these 1” from the outside to ensure that the mounting locations directly back underneath the finished deck board. WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT: There needs to be proper mounting for the hardware for proper safety & code compliance.

First: If an overhang exists, measure the overhang to the acrylic piece (in the video above we get 1” of overhang).

Second: Measure the outside edge to the outside edge.

Step 3 – Installing the Acrylic Pieces

Take the corner acrylic piece and place it in a corner, after accounting for the overhang, position the template and use the mounting screws to set it in place. Make sure to drill in the template to the backing underneath your deck.

Once the template is set, we need to install the template on the opposite end. Take out the straight template and place it on the deck’s perimeter. Account for the overhand and mount this piece into the decking.

Step 4 – Measuring the Run

Now that both templates are set, measure the distance with your tape measure from the one template to the other. When doing this, hook the tape measure to the outside edge of the base rail template then go to the opposite end (in the video we get 143 ¼ ).

Step 5 – Recording the Run Type & Length

On the backside of the template guide, there are two things to fill out: run type & run length. For run type state one of the following: straight to straight, straight to corner, corner to straight, corner to corner. For run length, simply record the distance of the run length.