Well Dan,
You can always accumulate your experience and build the stairs again without
errors.
The trick is to put your time into the jig system.
Your design will be much stronger than the sawtooth style of cutting stringers.
Cutting that style and getting it accurate is really divvicult.
Dale Leavens.
----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Rossi
To: Blind Handyman List
Sent: Monday, June 14, 2010 9:36 AM
Subject: [BlindHandyMan] Basement stairs
I can now mostly, safely, traverse from the first floor of my house, to
the basement, without having to leave the house. The last step is a bit
of a doozy since I haven't completed the landing, so there is a
double-high step at the bottom.
As per usual, my design far exceeded any actual skill I might possess.
Overall, I believe the stairs look pretty nice, albeit, with a few
imperfections showing here and there.
On two or three of the treads, the nose does not seat completely against
the stringer, leaving a very slight gap. There is one noticeable notch in
the corner of a tread where I made a booboo with my router. I was using a
plunge router with the multi-step little doodad. Well, I turned the
doodad the wrong way, and instead of plunging 1/4 of an inch, I plunged
3/4 of an inch before I realized what I did.
Apparently, looking from the bottom up, the illusion is that the steps are
sloping. The problem is that the treads are dead level, but the kitchen
floor isn't. So when you are looking up the stairs, you see a noticeable
difference between the edge of the top tread, and the kitchen floor.
I completely screwed up the bottoms of the stringers, but can essentially
compensate for that when I build the landing.
I routed a decorative Roman Ogee profile on the inside top edge of the
stringers.
Lifting the stairs into place was challenging, but not impossible. I just
kept lifting the upper end and wedging boards between the floor and one of
the treads, until it was wedged into place.
I hope to finish the lower landing this week, then I just need to think
about a railing at some point.
I'm just happy to be able to walk up and down to and from the basement
again.
--
Blue skies.
Dan Rossi
Carnegie Mellon University.
E-Mail: [email protected]
Tel: (412) 268-9081
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
