Hi Bob,

Thanks for buying the support.

As we are an UK company, if you are in the UK you have to pay VAT. but you can of course claim this back when Stefan send you the invoice.

To start, I’d love to see some drawings and eventually some photos of the existing stair well, what would also be helpful are some sketches of how your stair will fit the well with details of the stair to 1st floor assembly and structural fittings.

We’ll also need as much details as possible of the handrail and railings and how they will be fitted to the stairs as well as the transitions to landings volutes etc.

With this we can look into how best to fit the details of your design to your needs.

In general this type of stair requires quite a bit of CAD editing to get the detailed plans so if you don’t want to do this we might be able to do the drafting for you. 

All the best,

Ness

Hi Bob,

The support packs are £450 per 4 hours.

You can buy using the Buy Now buttons here:

https://wooddesigner.org/train…..g-service/

All the best,

Ness

Hi Bob,

Using a horizontal laminated central cut string as the main support you’ll need to dimension correctly the structural section under the step notches. In general I allow at least 140mm width for a thickness that is 1/5 the total width of the stair.

For you stair this would require a string with 140mm under steps and 200mm thick.

In your case this can be reduced since you also have lateral support provided with the left cut string and  the wall string.

However, in the model you posted the central cut string has only 75mm width and a thickness of 144mm this is not enough to be the main support and is a section that is more considered a stiffener that a support beam. If you want to maintain these sections to have narrow stringers I’d suggest that you increase the thickness of the left cut string to at least 70mm and make the wall stringer at least 30mm thick with the steps and risers fully housed into it.

In your design there is no point in making the wall string in 2 layers as the steps and risers are resting on the cut string and can be easily assembled. The 2 thickness stringers are for cases when the stair is made of boxed strings on both sides.

In all cases I’d strongly advise you make the curved section of the left cut string from horizontal laminates. I’d personally make the whole string as one part in horizontal laminates. This technique takes away the need to cut the notches and make all the assembly details much easier to manage. Making the string in one piece does away with the assembly of the separate parts and makes for much stronger string.

Here’s a sketch of how I would assemble the steps and risers to the horizontal laminated cut string:

As you can see the outer laminate is extended to cover the end grain of the risers.

As your stair is painted this is not absolutely necessary but would still be better so as not to have to paint end grain.

Note also that the steps over lap the string and are recessed at the back into the string outer face. Again these are details that could be simplified by making the step back edge just flush to the back face of the risers.

But in all cases you should make the steps overlap the cut string and set risers to assemble onto the steps and not behind them.

Handrails also must be set back from the step ends or at least make them flush. This will make the spindles mortised into the steps at around 40mm from the step ends.

I attach your stair modified to show you how it could be set up, but please note that StairDesigner will not draw the riser to cut string assembly details so you have to do this by editing the StairDesigner drawings.

Please note also that the stair file service will provide you with the DXF files of the parts so you’ll have to load them into CAD to edit and print.

We can provide full size PDF plans of parts but this is at extra charge. Also this is a free service to Premium members but doesn’t include revision so you’ll have to make sure that you stair is set up as you need it before you request the plans.

As you project is a complex job even for an experienced professional stair builded, you might consider buying some one to one training sessions so that we can take the time to check over the details before. This type of stair has a lot of details to organise before you start building. So if you want a professional job all the plans must be well set up.

Please see this page for paid training and support :

https://wooddesigner.org/train…..g-service/

The complete drawing of a stair like this would probably take me a couple of days work, so in my option, 4 hours extra support would certainly not be too much to get the details of project sorted.

All the best,

Ness