Building a staircase

I'm planning on building a new staircase in my house - has anyone done this, and am I mad? It will be , a straight run with three winders at the bottom. It will be open to a room on one side. All in pine or similar (no ply or mdf). I'm a (very) amateur carpenter, but not really a joiner.

Originally I was planning to get one built, then I mentioned the idea of building it myself, to a friend, who was highly dismissive and suggested I should stick to making things "within my skills base" - whatever he considers that to be.

Obviously this was as a red rag to a bull, so I'm now ordering books to make sure I'm up to speed with aspects of design and construction that I might not be au fait with, and decide whether it's within my capability.

Does anyone have any hints, or pointers to the likely pitfalls? I know I should get one made, or buy a kit, so observations to that effect will be ignored ;-) And yes, I do know the BR for stairs.

Cheers Richard

Reply to
geraldthehamster
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Yup done it, got the tee shirt ;-)

(no you are not mad - it actually not that difficult if you take it easy and plan carefully)

As long as you can work you way round a router, saw and jigsaw you are mostly there.

Yup, he definitely needs a good helping of humble pie! ;-)

First stage is measuring carefully to work out the total rise and going, and hence the number of steps and the pitch (keeping under or equal the

42 deg in the BR). Once you have that, you know the rise and going of each step. You can also add some nosing to each tread to make for a more traditional appearance and a nicer "walk".

Decide what type of stair you want; traditional string, or cut string.

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we are going for traditional string, the you will need a string routing template. You can buy these, but for a one off project there is no real point, since a bespoke template will do the job just was well.

I cut mine from some 12mm ply, and oversized it to allow for the offset of the guide bush on the router. You cut the rise and tread such that each rebate is a wedge shape (1 in 7) - with the front face of the riser being vertical, and the top face of the tread being horizontal.

Choose some suitable wood for your strings - probably wants to be getting on for an inch thick, and tall enough to allow an inch or so above the top of the step noses. You may need join an extra bit to the wall side where you have your wind, to increase the height and allow the pitch to get shallower on the kite and winder steps.

You then work out where the first rebate goes on the string. Clamp your guide on, using s set square to get the alignment right. Route out that one. Then move it to the next position. Use the set square again, but also measure the distance from the nose of the one just cut to the edge of the board, and make sure the next is the same. Repeat for the remaining steps. When you get to the kite and winder and need a longer wedge than your template allows, just route what you can, and then extend the rebate lines in pencil along the board, and either route that against a straight edge, or freehand between the lines.

Once you have your strings you can work on the newel posts. These will also need routing out for the steps that fit against those (where the risers will meet them at an angle you may need to split off the edge of the routed rebate on a couple of steps to get the final entry angle).

Fitting is a case of getting the strings up in place first - screwed to the wall on one side and suspended on the newel posts/floor/landing etc on the other. Next you need to cut lots of wedges - on a table saw is easiest with a template:

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(I used offcuts of tile batten, and made each a bit longer than the going of the normal steps).

Now cut the treads and risers to size. You may need to joint up smaller boards to get something big enough for the kite step and possibly the winders. Rebate the underside of each tread nose to accommodate the top of the riser. Route a bullnose onto the front of the tread (assuming you want a rounded nose that is!)

Fitting is done from the back. Test fit stuff before gluing! Insert the tread first and slide it into the rebates as far as it will go - or at least until the riser rebate lines up with the edge of the rebate in the string that will take the riser. I then glued up the tread and then lightly wedged it in place before inserting the riser and making sure that it slots into the rebate on the underside of the tread above it. Once everything was lined up, the wedges can be firmly hammered home. After the fist step is in place, you can then work up from there. The difference is that the riser of the next step can be screwed or nailed to the back of the tread of the previous one. For some added strength you can also glue a couple of bits of 2" aris rail under each tread / riser joint at the back. (I actually used longer lengths of aris - but that is overkill really).

You can pre cut the wedges to be short enough for the smaller steps. For the longer ones you will need the wedges full length.

That will get you a basic staircase. You can add another bit of detail by gluing and pinning a length of scotia moulding under each nose. This not only looks nicer, but also adds strength to the nose.

The final stage is the ballustrading, but we can worry about that later ;-)

So in Blue Peter tradition... here is one I made earlier:

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have higher res photos if you need)

Reply to
John Rumm

don't suppose you fancy buying my (admittedly) US staircase construction book? :>)

JimK

Reply to
JimK

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Thanks very much John. It's entirely my fault that I didn't say explicitly that I'd more or less decided on cut strings ;-) I think they look nicer, and it seems to me, naively, that they could actually be easier to build. What I'm not clear about is where the risers meet the string (mitre, or overlap and cover with moulding?) and how the three winders at the bottom "interface" (horrible word) with the newel. The winders won't project onto a bullnose starting step, for issues of headroom. I assume I build these first, by fixing three frames one atop the other.

Cheers Richard

Reply to
geraldthehamster

If you mean this one:

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a copy is already on its way to me ;-)

Cheers Richard

Reply to
geraldthehamster

The simplest type of stair to make is these:

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you need is a saw and a plane. Take care over accuracy of spacing and level, even a small error can cause a problem for end users. Mad? Not for making your own stairs anyway :)

NT

Reply to
NT

bugger - why didn;t you post earlier? :>) we could have had a pint or two each out of it...

Cheers JimK

Reply to
JimK

Thanks ;-

Cheers Richard

Reply to
geraldthehamster

And did you use the book?

Cheers Richard

Reply to
geraldthehamster

well i read it yes!

JimK

Reply to
JimK

Is there anything in there about the design and construction of winders? That's triangular and kite-shaped steps that attach to a newel, as opposed to fenestration in the East End.

Cheers Richard

Reply to
geraldthehamster

Sounds like you already have the design brief - triangular and kite shaped... what else do you want to know?

Reply to
John Rumm

There are several variations on layout it seems. Some do the risers so the are similar to traditional strings, but have the treads cut into the strings and made a little wider so they overlap the string. Other designs move the strings in closer together and have equal length risers and treads planted on the faces cut into the strings. The riser to tread joint remains the same.

Depends on how "open" you want it looking.

Usually the triangles have a narrow end the same depth as the thicknes of the newel, plus the nosing. These sit in rebates in the newel that go the full width of it (on two adjacent sides). The kite, is similar but has a rebate that goes "round the corner", and the tread has a right angle bit chopped out the narrow end to match.

You could do a starting step, then a half landing, rather than three winding steps...

Depends on if you need to gain height quickly or slowly. When I did mine, I needed to get enough clearance over the first flight of steps - so the three winders plus starting step was handy tp gain height fast.

Reply to
John Rumm

I think my risers wouldn't overlap the string. I've seen diagrams where the ends of the risers and the upright part of the cut in the string are mitred to meet each other, which looks like a nightmare to do accurately. hence my thought to overlap the risers on the string, with the ends flush with the outside of the string, then cover with a vertical moulding to hide the join. This would probably look better if the treads, which would protrude slightly beyond the string, were cut to have flaps protruding backwards slightly. I know what I mean, but clearly I lack the terminology ;-)

I see that. I need to gain height slowly, because I can't open a full- height stair well right to the bottom of the going.

I'm sure there are as many ways to build a staircase, as to skin an egg. A second string to my bow is to look out for pulled-out staircases that could be re-used ... I've seen a couple on eBay but nothing the right size. My friend across the road built hsi won house around the outside of a nondescript 19th century cottage, and made himself quite a grand stair case by re-locating the stairs from a

1970s addition which he demolished, and adding three wide winders at the bottom.

Cheers Richard

Reply to
geraldthehamster

Thanks John - after I typed that, something went "clunk" in my brain, and I realised that I need to start with a landing, not winders. Subject to sufficient overall going. That's going to make it *so* much more straightforward.

Cheers Richard

Reply to
geraldthehamster

"winders" is still a word (for windows) in use in Menorca from the British Colonials building their Georgian houses in/around Mahon !

Sorry don't recall details in book - by the time I found the book I expect yours will have arrived!

Cheers JimK

Reply to
JimK

Does anyone know where I can find a free stair calculator (for tread, riser and stringer sizes for given rise and going), that works in metric? I've found this:

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it assumes inches, and the cells are password-protected.

Cheers Richard

Reply to
geraldthehamster

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember geraldthehamster saying something like:

Here's a simple set of stairs I built ten years ago and still going strong. I got the timber from a local sawmill and had a carpentry shop finish it, but I did the cutting and installation myself. I didn't bother with recessing the treads, just screwed and glued blocks for them to sit on.

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Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

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