After building the railing, the final step in the project was to stain everything. I used a semi-transparent redwood stain from BEHR, which worked well with my paint sprayer.
I went through a little over 8 gallons of stain (there is a lot of wasted stain when you’re using a sprayer on railing, but it still beats hand brushing it). In the end, the stain did a really good job of bringing the old railing that was still in place closer to the water together with the new railing, so it looks like a cohesive set of railing and stairs.
