Hardwood Stairs

[Casey]

I'm starting a major remodel on my home soon and we will be putting in Bloodwood floors. It's the stairs that are giving me the trouble. I know solid 5/4 or 1" thick is standard for treads and this is fine with something like oak, but I have only found Bloodwood in 4/4 (too thin after milling, or is it?) and 8/4 (too thick and expensive). My question is are the 3/4" flooring planks usible for stair treads? Here's what i'm thinking, use 3/4" plywood on treads covered by the

3/4" hardwood planks, the risers (which will be painted wood) will cover the ply tread, I can even use a routed out housed stringer like normal. One more issue, the bullnosed leading edge and return should be an inch or so thick, right? So I guess I will have to custom rabbet these from larger stock. Does any of this sound doable? thanks

[Brikp]

Hmm, no replies yet, I was watching the thread because I am interested to know the solution....

Anyway - I am not expert so take my free advice for what its worth.

I think your idea about putting what would amount to a subfloor under your milled 4/4 tread would be the way to go. The concern would be with the stability of the added bullnose. The front edge of the step will take the most abuse. At a minimum I would use biscuits and glue. Better yet may be to mill a grove in the edge of the tread and a matching tennon in the bullnose and glue it in that way.

Or, another way could be to do it like they do on some countertops. You can laminate another piece of 4/4 X 1" on the edge like this (use a proportional font like courier to view)

/-------------------------------------- / 4/4 tread |--------------------------------------- \ edge piece | \-----------|

Then you can bull nose to whatever thickness you want. Basically you just build up the edge enough to cover your subfloor.

Now that I have given it some more though the last option would definitely be sturdier and probably look better too.

[Robert Allison]

That would work, or you could add more stringers so that your span is not so wide. An additional stringer would stiffen up the flooring enough to use without the addition of the ply (this is assuming a standard width staircase).

You are on the right track for the nosing.