Dolle INSTA-Rail Vertical Cable Railing Inserts for deck railing- 42"H

Found this when looking for an affordable modern fence alternative. I researched and purchased this product in advance of installing a new four by four deck fence. My son looking for a project to help me with took on the task. While the details are now hazy, I know we needed a few trips to the hardware store for a few things to make the task easier, but most of my "mom tools" were good enough to do the job. One caveat, my deck was old and not level throwing the rails off by a little, which then in turn added some angst in calculating the cutting the cable inserts. Being novices at this, we also did not get the tension as taut as we would have liked. Since the deck is not that high off of the ground I was less worried about code and more concerned with the aesthetics and was satisfied with the overall install of the rails. Install posed no problem in instructions and has held up well with no design flaws.

The railings (total 7 of them ) were installed 3 weeks ago and even though it says "stainless steel" it already has lots of rust spots. I dont want to imagine what it will look like in a year from now. I will probably have to replace all of them by then. So I would not recommend this product.

The cables and mounting parts look nice, however, when putting any pull on the cables, they pull out of their end pieces and have to be thrown away. The cable ends all had to be tig welded to prevent this. Also if any little extra tightening of the cables caused the metal mounting strips to lift and pull the screws. I had to have some thicker stainless tracks made to withstand the pressure. The stainless is also a poor quality and they are already starting to rust due to the salt air at the California coast. Not a great choice but the only choice I could find for vertical cabling for handrails and guardrails.

I installed 9 of the 42" and 2 of the 36" kits. I wanted to provide some real world feedback to potential buyers to make an informed buying decision since they are a significant investment. First off, the supplier tolerance requirement between the top and bottom rails is ridiculous. They are asking for like +/- 1/8" average. No wood railing system has that kind of tolerance. But, I understand why the supplier is asking for these tolerances now that I did the installation. It all comes down to desired tensioning. The cables actually have springs inside the end pieces that can maintain a very weak tension when the cables are tightened fully to the end. If you follow the install directions of 30.5 inches between top and bottom rail for the most part you will bottom out the end fittings. The cables are not really tight at this point but being held by the spring tension. In this situation you can pull the cables apart a good 2 or 3 inches at the middle depending on how much "slop" there is when the fittings are bottomed out. That is if you are lucky enough to actually have 30.5 inches between the top and bottom rail the entire length of the two sections (apprx 6ft). In my case, the bottom railings were slightly bowed up, so no matter what I did, the center cables were too loose. So I drilled a 1/4" hole through the bottom rail down through the decking and inserted a 8" galvanized carriage through the rail, reinforced the decking and pulled the bottom rail down to get the center cables tight. Basically making the top and bottom railings as parallel as possible which was no small feat. Too much tension and the top rail pulled down as well. Also, I went with 30 5/8" inches between the bottom and top rail. With this distance the cable end fitting do not bottom out and you can put decent tension on the cables that resulted in less than 1" bend in the middle.Some other tidbits for consideration.I used a 9/32" ignition wrench to tighten the fittings. It fit perfectly in the flats. I don't know why the supplier did not put flats on the cable receiver fittings. The instruction tell you to use needle nose pliers to hold them, that's a joke, they spin too easily. Flats on the male fitting would make the tightening a lot easier.I don't know what kind of stainless the phillips head screws are but you can count on rounding off about 1/2 of them while tightening. I tried several #2 drive bits with no difference. Not sure if there is a "metric" phillips head (these are imported parts) but I had to buy extra screws. Also about 10 of my male cable receiver fittings would not thread into the cable. It was the receiver fitting and not the cable fitting. I also had two cable ends pull off with hardly any tension. Also note that you are dealing with stainless hardware so be prepared to wipe out several hacksaw blades and drill bits. I used a sawzall to cut the mounting rails.But in spite of all the issues....I can say they really look fantastic!!! We wanted white railings and I decided that all those white balusters would wipe out our beautiful creek view. When I installed these, everyone has really complimented how "open" it looks now almost as if there were nothing there other than top and bottom railing. I would give a higher rating if not for the issues I mentioned above. The engineering concept is excellent but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Knowing what I know after installation, I would still buy them because they are less expensive than horizontal and easier to install. The biggest thing one needs to be concerned about the parallelism of the top and bottom rails. Also, you better check how much "bend' the cables are allowed to have for your building code if the installation has to be inspected. With a 4" cable to cable centerline, there is no way you can create enough tension to keep a 4" object from passing between them.All said, the look of our deck justified all the pitfalls and expense. It really has the "wow" factor now!!! Good luck!

I think I like these. I'll update on wear/tear later, but so far: so good.I have need for a lot of deck rails (multiple properties). These are easy to install and look good.

We did our porch with these and it turned out beautiful. We get so many compliments. Definitely worth the money. We spray painted the metal rails with Rustoleum paint so it blended in with the wood better. Love. I would definitely recommend to any who's not sure.