Yeah, I am still working on the basement stairs. Since the stringers were short, I decided to just move them 3.5 inches straight up. This has the effect of moving the treads further into the stringers. I chose 3.5 inches because it was roughly correct, and I had some chunks of 4X4 I could rest the bottoms of the stringers on while setting things up.
I got the one stringer in place, then very very carefully located and screwed in, a chunk of 2X10 exactly where the first tread would go. I then built a jig that would enable me to rout out the riser and tread dados. I set the jig over that registration chunk of 2X10. This allowed me to attach a chunk of 2X4 to the back of the jig right along the edge of the stringer. I clamped it in place, removed the registration block and routed the first tread. Then all I had to do was release the clamp, slide the jig down the length of the stringer, and by lining up the top of the riser slot in the jig, to the bottom front corner of the routed tread, I was ready to routt out the next riser and tread dado. It worked amazingly well. The nose of the treads didn't walk forward or back on the stringer at all. I then propped both stringers in place. I placed a tread in the dado on the one tread, then carefully leveled it, and marked exactly where it hit the other stringer. I got as far as setting the registration chunk of 2X10, but haven't routed out the second stringer yet. I am at least making progress. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [email protected] Tel: (412) 268-9081
