Stair building 101

[gtblum]

Never ever cut your treads to length ahead of time while assuming the walls are at equal distance from the top to the bottom.

Sorry about the lousy pic.

Click to Enlarge

48.37 KB

[hausdok]

Not necessarily true,

Some stair makers of pre-fabricated stairways intentionally build with tapered stopped dados in housed stringers. The treads and risers are then locked into place with glued wedges. The idea is that if the stairway is installed where one side is open there won't be any fasteners showing, whereas the other side of the carriage - the side against a wall, will be secured to the adjacent framing.

Those wedges sometimes dry out and shrink or split and need to be rendewed.

What you are seeing might be a perfectly acceptable stair building technique.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[gtblum]

What you are seeing might be a perfectly acceptable stair building technique.

Sorry again about the picture.

If you were standing there with me you would have seen it. No doubt.

They look very much the same as the way I've always done them. Right down to where they flipped over the tread material to use for stringers.

They weren't factory. Just someone who didn't know it could happen.

[Marc]

Never ever cut your treads to length ahead of time while assuming the walls are at equal distance from the top to the bottom.

Sorry about the lousy pic.

Click to Enlarge

48.37 KB

Where's the stringer? Or is that a routed stringer?

Marc

[gtblum]

Never ever cut your treads to length ahead of time while assuming the walls are at equal distance from the top to the bottom.

Sorry about the lousy pic.

Click to Enlarge

48.37 KB

Where's the stringer? Or is that a routed stringer?

Marc

Like Mike said It's a housed stringer. Yes it's routed.

[Jim Katen]

I'm afraid I don't see the problem, aside from one fallen wedge.

What, exactly, is wrong here?

- Jim Katen, Oregon

[emalernee]

Are there gaps between the treads, risers and stringer on the living side of the stairs that you are concerned about? This picture only shows a missing wedge on the riser.

My older sisters gave me the job of re-gluing the wedges when, because of the dried out horse hide glue and squeaky steps, they got caught sneaking out of the the house after dad had went to bed.

You might want to suggest that a fire rated covering be installed for safety on the underside.

Ezra Malernee

Canton, Ohio

[gtblum]

I'm afraid I don't see the problem, aside from one fallen wedge.

What, exactly, is wrong here?

- Jim Katen, Oregon

Here's what was wrong. The reason the wedges were falling out was partially because the treads and risers were not correctly sized for where they were being installed. The pic sucks. The others disappeared sorry. I'm in the habit of routing my stringers, setting them without nailing them, installing bottom tread and riser, then pushing the top up, installing the nosing at the top then lowering it to where its' going to be. From there, I secure the stringers, then cut every one of the treads and risers to fit. Glue wedge ect.

So, either one of two things happened here. Either the guy put the whole thing together at once then busted his ass stuffing it in the well and spread it when he secured it, or they cut a pile of treads the same length and, expected there would be no variation in the distance between the walls as he went along, found out different, and installed them anyway with a minimumum amount of the tread in the stringers and stuck them in anyway. People used them, and the wedges loosened up. If they did them individually in the first place, there wouldn't be anyway or any where they could have moved.

I had the method I use, beat into my head by a mean old schooler back in my early twentys. I never had a problem, they have always gone in fast, And I never went back to fix a set. I make my own jigs out of half inch plywood, and have never owned any stinking Stanley jig.

Now that I'm old and have had to rip other's garbage out and replace it more than a few times, I Ain't changing they way I do it.

[Marc]

So you're saying that the distance between the 2 stringers was not measured for each and every tread location and that this resulted in some treads being too short to be fully seated into the grooves at those locations?

Marc

[gtblum]

So you're saying that the distance between the 2 stringers was not measured for each and every tread location and that this resulted in some treads being too short to be fully seated into the grooves at those locations?

Marc

Yes Marc. You're a framer right?

An 1/8 of an inch off doesn't mean that much unless you only have 3/8 to work with right? Then it becomes a big deal.

[Marc]

Framer, yes, among other things, but I cut my teeth in the building trades with framing.

Never did routed stringers. Always open cut on 2X lumber. Thanks for the lesson. Good to learn something new.

Marc

[gtblum]

Framer, yes, among other things, but I cut my teeth in the building trades with framing.

Never did routed stringers. Always open cut on 2X lumber. Thanks for the lesson. Good to learn something new.

Marc

That is what we're here for. To learn.

BTW, You framers have been screwing us trim guys forever. LOL!