Multi-flight stairs, straight and circular
- Straight flights
- Circular flights
- Helicoidal stair example
- Elliptical stair example
- Circular and straight combined
We’ve covered how to create a stair starting from a model.
The multi-flight alternative offers more flexibility. Please note, even if you create your stair from a model, you can access these features simply by adding a flight.
Please also note that our StairDesigner overview video uses the Multi-flight feature.
Click below to view this video:
Straight flights
First click on the New stair icon, then open the Multi-flight stair tab:
Some of the parameters we’ve covered before, let’s focus instead on the new ones:
- Type: straight (shown) or circular
- Angle: the rotation of the entire fight
- Start angle: of first step
- End angle: of last step
Note that only the left or right flight length is shown in bold. The last length that is edited will show in bold. It is then fixed, so any subsequent calculations will impact the other flight, not the one in bold.
In the example below, we have added an angle to the first step, note that the left flight length has not changed, but the right has.
Now click on the green + icon to add a new flight.
In our example, this new flight is straight and the angle of the second flight (which now corresponds to the angle of the turn) has been set to 120°. The rotation or direction of the turn is to the right.
Carry on adding flights to create a stair of any shape, or click on the red x icon to remove flights.
Here’s the same design with a further flight added. Note that by default no stringboards, newel posts or handrails are added.
We can however add them now in the normal way, and continue to optimise the stair against our control values, fix steps, edit part parameters and so on.
Here’s a model we’ve created using straight flights:
Circular flights
The same feature can be used to build stairs with circular flights.
Instead select the Type as Circular.
The new parameters specific to a circular flight are:
- Left/right radius: of the circle which defines the curve, a larger radius results in a more gentle curve
- Left/right angle: how much of the circle constitutes the curve e.g. 90° is ¼ of a circle, the curve will be a quarter turn
Here’s a stair based on 3 circular flights:
This time let’s add stringboards then view the stair in 2D and 3D:
Helicoidal stair example
This stair was also created using the multi-flight stair feature and a single circular flight with an angle of 270°.
We could have made a similar stair with the stringboard split into 3 pieces, so with three consecutive circular flights each with an angle of 90°. The radius setting would remain constant throughout.
Elliptical stair example
In this example, we have designed a complex curved stair. The curve is shown below in a CAD package, and consists of three sections or arcs.
This first arc on the left is shown with these dimensions:
- Outer radius 121
- Inner radius 32
- Angle of 67°
In the Multi-flight tab we can start with this section:
Below, we’ve added the remaining two arcs:
Here’s the result in 2D and 3D. We added a stringboard and a number of straight steps too, we can continue to add components as required.
Circular and straight combined
Note that we can use the Multi-flight feature to combine straight and circular flights as well if required.
Here are the stair parameters:
And here’s the stair in 3D:
