Hi Mark,

Good to see that you can go ahead with this great project. 

Good idea to build the curved string using the horizontal laminates. You can also build the bottom bullnose using the same technique.

I’m not sure I understand exactly how you are thinking of mitring the risers and strings.

Can you send me some sketches so that I get it clear in my head?

If you use horizontal laminates for the string you can usually do away with mitring the risers to the string. As well as if you add a decorative cut bracket this will hide the end grain of the riser too.

I find that not having to mitre risers is a major advantage of horizontal laminates.

Is the underside of the stairs visible?

How are you thinking of making the wreathed handrail?

To advise you better can you send me the drawings and eventually any photos of the type of finished stair and it’s details, (mouldings, bracket design, newels, etc), ?

All the best,

Ness

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the complements.

I’ve struggled with stairs for a long time now so I hope that I’ve learned a few tricks that I’d be more than happy to pass on.

Especially as high end stair building is a dying  craft with fewer and fewer people capable of building them correctly.

Ness

Hi Mark,

No problem in helping out with this nice stair project.

From what you say I would certainly not advise using a former to build this stair.

I would strongly advise using horizontal laminates to build the string and laminated sections to build the handrail.

Although it’s possible to use a former and laminate traditionally you will take at least twice the time compared with using horizontal laminates. This is because not only do you gain time not having to build the former, but you also don’t have to cut the step supports as the total shape of the string in built into the horizontal laminates from the start. the technique also does away with having to mitre risers and recess or cut out the back of the steps into the strings as this can also be built directly into the laminations.

Here’s a stair similar to yours build by my friends Rick and Andy using their CNC to cut the laminates:

https://wooddesigner.org/tradi…..-low-tech/

Rick said that it didn’t take more than a couple of days to build the curved stringer with the CNC.

Another example is this stair built by Ron d’Alexandro of Kellner Stairs :

https://wooddesigner.org/tradi…..ut-string/

For the handrail you could use the traditional tangent solid handrailing but the easiest solution is to use the technique I developed for making wooden rails on metal rails.

This technique does away with having to mark out the handrail and has the neat advantage of not only being very easy to do but also make a handrail with a square section perfectly perpendicular to the upper and lower helictical surfaces which makes moulding the rail much easier.

There are quite a lot of videos floating around in the Handrails section of our Wood Designer web site, first link above:

If you want I we could organise some hands on training in your shop, or if there are several people interested find a way to organise a group training session in the UK sometime soon.

What do you think?

Don’t hesitate to post me your questions on the forum as bad decisions can cost a lot in time and effort on this sort of job.

see you soon

Ness