You don't have to go all that deep, mine are probably deeper than they need to be but 3/8th should be plenty, the stringers would have to separate a long way for a tread to fall out of that.
I cut mine and so are the ones I have examined cut to open at the bottom edge of the stringer. You slide the tread into place then the riser. the riser can extend below the stringer and can even be screwed or nailed to the edge of the tread below except of course for the bottom one. Now as for the wedging, I haven't done it this way but probably should have. The rear of the riser slot and the bottom of the tread slot is cut slightly angled toward the trailing edge. I assume this is to make sliding the treads and risers into place easier. Then a wedge is driven in below the tread and behind the riser to snug them firmly into place. The nose end of the tread slot and the top of the riser slot seems to be quite precise as memory serves. sliding a tread or riser into the slots if they fit precisely can be difficult and I suppose that there isn't any way to adjust them after the fact if/when squeaks develop. ----- Original Message ----- From: Dan Rossi To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, May 24, 2010 11:44 AM Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] Building stairs. Dale, Interesting. I hadn't thought about dadoing the treads and risers into the stringers. I was just going to screw pieces of 2X4 to the stringers and screw or nail the treads down to the 2X4s. How deep would you dado? Quarter inch? Half inch? I wasn't certain about the wedging. Do you mean you cut the dado just a bit longer than the length of the tread and then wedge behind the tread? So, if you are doing blind dados, and using a three quarter straight bit, don't you end up with funky ends to the dado that you have to clean up? How do you physically attach the treads to the stringers? Or don't you? -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [email protected] Tel: (412) 268-9081 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
