Steel DN Mate 100 Pack T316 Stainless Steel Right&Left Handed Thread Swage Lag Screws for Wood Post of 1/8" Steel Cable Railing Kit, Cable Railing Hardware, DIY Deck Railings, Wrench Include, DM50

Somewhat easy to install if you’re an intermediate handy man. Helped me to make a jig for perfect drill holes on every post. Hardest part is crimping the wire. Wife was happy, that’s all that matters.

The product looks great after install. But if you want to save time you’ll have to experiment.1. You can measure post to post and subtract the 1.5” for the wire. This will work on a level surface. Except if you did not shoot the drill completely level or straight - the 1.5” will likely be taking “too much”. Always do 1.6” just in case.2. If you cut the wire a bit too long and can’t manually turn the hand tool, grip your hydraulic crimping on the wire screw and manually turn it this way. You could just start over but who would wanna do that?3. When doing the wire cutting, have someone hold the other end of the wire you just cut - to line it up with the second wire you needed for the same posts and cut until you have the needed amount.4. Use a drill to drill the wire screw into the post to get it started. Attempt to get the screw into the post the same depth - do a thread count and get a rough guess/count on proceeding screws.5. Use a cobalt, not supplied, 3/16th drill bit for tapping the wire screw holes.6. On stairs, throw away the directions they gave you on 2” between posts. It would depend on the depth of your stairs for that to make sense anyway. You’ll be in for a rough few hours on one section if you don’t listen to this advice. You need to set the wire screws to a COUNTABLE thread count on each side. You then place the wire into the hole of one wire screw until the wire hits the bottom of the wire screw. Drag some wire to the opposing post’s leading edge and line it up with where the wire would go. Cut the wire approximately 0.25” shorter than the leading edge of the post. If this is too long/short then you will eventually get a feel for where this cut needs to go. Once you get this down it’ll be cake.

Product is easy to install, yet time consuming. Looks great in the space!

Easy to work with and does the job it's designed to do.

Update 9/24/24 - the supplier reached out multiple times to help resolve this. They shipped me V2 of the wrenches which were improvements but still broke. They then shipped V3 of the wrenches (which should be what is in stock at Amazon now) which are significantly beefier and hold up well on hardwood. Note, for hardwood make sure you drill the holes deep enough and use a pilot hole size guide for hardwood (usually they suggest slightly larger pilot holes for hardwood vs softwood). I added the last picture with all 3 versions side by side. Obviously big changes between V1, 2 & 3 for the one wrench. The third is definitely stronger and should work consistently. The flat angled version for V3 looks the same but is heavier (44 vs 38 g). I assume that it will stand up better as it is needed for many applications on angled stairs or in tight quarters.Good screws, bad proprietary wrench. The wrenches broke within 10 minutes of use and they are the only ones that will work for the Steel DN swage lag screws. So, this easily basically means that you will have to buy a bunch of these wrenches (they sell them separately) and be really careful with them. I used the drill bit provided and screw wax but the wrench still broke when tightening. My application is on hardwood posts. I assume this will be less of an issue with soft pine.

I used this product to replace wood slats on my handrail for my deck. I found the wood slats really hurt the visibility. Problem solved with Steel DN Mate. I replaced my 1 by 1 wood slats with the stainless steel cable system and I could not be happier. Extremely cost effective and easy for a "do it yourself project". Ordered through Amazon. When I first screwed up by not predrilling 2" for the screws I texted the company saying the wrenches provided broke. I had new wrenches ordered on a Saturday night and delivered by 8am the next day. After predrilling the required 2" I had no more problems and that was on me. I used a template made from a 1 by 4 board that had holes drilled vertically every 3" that I clamped to the 4by4 post that allowed me to score where to predrill the holes. Then removed the template, predrilled the 2 inches into the post, installed the the swage screws so 1" of thread still showing on each side, cut the wires 1.5" shorter than the distance between posts, crimped the wire using a hydraulic crimping tool and then started on one side using the wrench and turned equal amounts on one side and then the same to the other side. I started out 10 quarter turns on one side then same on the other side. When the cable slack was taken up I switched to 5 turns then 3 and 2 turns on each side so as not to twist the cable. Photo shows the end result. We are thrilled with the results.