Help with making my own stairs

[Rob Di Nardo]

Hi, i was wanting to know if there are any experienced stair builders in the forum, I have an existing set of stairs I want to replace and make out of red oak, I do not want to cover them with carpet again or just cover the treads and risers in oak, I want to start fresh.I have most of the wood and all the tools but im lacking stair building experience, especially with the making of the stringers? The ballasts and spindles look to be do-able for me. Anyone care to help, I can post pictures of course. Thanks

[Steve Clardy]

Ok. First question.

Are the present stringers bad?


Present staircase pictures would be helpful.


Steve

[Brian Weick]

I hope this helps you: from one of my woodworking articals, I have to do my stair case entirely different layout- it will be an interesting project.
First determine the size of your stairwell, making sure to allow for the proper headroom to accommodate the stairs. Headroom is very important; you need to be able to ascend and descend the stair safely. Many a stair has been torn out due to incorrect calculation of this item before the stair is built and installed. There is nothing worse than having some common stair-building sense knocked into you by bumping your head. For this example the nosing will be a standard 1 1/4 inch, the tread run will be 10 inches each, and the headroom will be 6 feet, 8 inches.
Assuming the distance from one finished floor to the other (total rise) measures 118 inches, find out the number of risers needed by dividing the total finish rise by 7.5. The resulting number equals the number of risers. Then divide that number into the total finish rise.


Example: Total rise 118”/ 7.5 = 15.73 — round up the total number of risers to 16


Total rise 118”/16 risers = 7 3/8” each rise

Knowing the number of risers tells you the number of treads — 15 (the sixteenth riser will be positioned approaching the upper floor with no tread on top). The run of the stair will then be 15 treads at 10 inches per tread, or 150 inches of total run. To determine the actual total length of the stair, you must add the nosing of the bottom step and the thickness of the top riser.

Brian

[Richard Wolf]

Stair building would be very difficult to teach in a thread on a forum. There are a few books around, including some finished carpentry books that explain the math involved in the layout. Take a run to the book store an see what you can find.
Pictures of your situation will help also.
It would be best if you could ask some specific questions instead of looking for all the general knowledge.

Richard

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Stair building would be very difficult to teach in a thread on a forum. There are a few books around, including some finished carpentry books that explain the math involved in the layout. Take a run to the book store an see what you can find.
Pictures of your situation will help also.
It would be best if you could ask some specific questions instead of looking for all the general knowledge.

Richard

What he said~!!


When I had a stair to build I bought Gaspar J. Lewis' book "CARPENTRY" from Amazon. I paid $20.00 it's a little more now tho. still has five stars.

It's got loads of illustrations and formulas and dedicates 16 jam packed pages to stair building. No spirals but whatdayawant.

[Mike Jones NM]

I guess I just cheat and plug the rise and run into the construction master 5 and it gives me all the good info :D
Last couple of sets I built I did not cut the stringers but used metal cleats to hold the treads, works well and IMO the stringers will be stronger

[Jim Kountz]

http://www.timbermountainbuilders.com/images/stair%20job%20008.jpg

Heres a set I did a while back, pretty straight forward but could be helpful to you.

Jim

[Paul Gauthier]

This may help.
http://www.binkyswoodworking.com/Stairs.html

[Rob Di Nardo]

Ok. First question.

Are the present stringers bad?


Present staircase pictures would be helpful.


Steve

Not that they are bad, I just want to change them to Oak, stringers included. Pics to follow, Thankyou Steve.

[Rob Di Nardo]

I hope this helps you: from one of my woodworking articals, I have to do my stair case entirely different layout- it will be an interesting project.
First determine the size of your stairwell, making sure to allow for the proper headroom to accommodate the stairs. Headroom is very important; you need to be able to ascend and descend the stair safely. Many a stair has been torn out due to incorrect calculation of this item before the stair is built and installed. There is nothing worse than having some common stair-building sense knocked into you by bumping your head. For this example the nosing will be a standard 1 1/4 inch, the tread run will be 10 inches each, and the headroom will be 6 feet, 8 inches.
Assuming the distance from one finished floor to the other (total rise) measures 118 inches, find out the number of risers needed by dividing the total finish rise by 7.5. The resulting number equals the number of risers. Then divide that number into the total finish rise.


Example: Total rise 118”/ 7.5 = 15.73 — round up the total number of risers to 16


Total rise 118”/16 risers = 7 3/8” each rise

Knowing the number of risers tells you the number of treads — 15 (the sixteenth riser will be positioned approaching the upper floor with no tread on top). The run of the stair will then be 15 treads at 10 inches per tread, or 150 inches of total run. To determine the actual total length of the stair, you must add the nosing of the bottom step and the thickness of the top riser.

Brian

Excellent information Brian! That is a great help.

[Rob Di Nardo]

http://www.timbermountainbuilders.com/images/stair%20job%20008.jpg

Heres a set I did a while back, pretty straight forward but could be helpful to you.

Jim

Beatufil job, see the way the stairs jut out past the wall and than finished with wood against the drywall? That is exactly what I want only there are no curves in my set I need. Thank you!

[Rob Di Nardo]

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b28/late68100/Picturessss076.jpg

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b28/late68100/Picturessss083.jpg

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b28/late68100/Picturessss077.jpg

[Steve Clardy]

Rob.
Looks to me that you can basically remove the old components and stringers, and fashion everything out of oak using your existing components as a guide.

[Todd Jensen]

Here are two links:
http://fitts.com/install.aspx a way to do it, and the latest stair codes(your local codes may vary): http://www.stairways.org/pdf/2006%20Stair%20IRC%20SCREEN.pdf .

Though thats a really short run, you're going to save yourself a lot of headache just working with the existing framing. If you want to get down and dirty remove and re-frame that knee wall and convert to an open-tread stair. Otherwise I would just pull your existing treads and risers and replace them with oak treads and oak ply risers. Since you have never done this before you're going to be having enough fun setting newel posts so they're not wobblers, installing your handrail, and baluster installation including layout.

Like Richard said, there is really no way to teach someone stairs on a forum thread - there are MANY pitfalls to avoid, and a lot of things that look easy can be excruciatingly painful and time consuming to execute properly(most especially your first time.) That being said, its also not rocket science and I'm sure you'll stumble along just fine, but seriously seriously consider how involved you make this first stair project - you could quickly create a big mess for yourself. Your other roommates would much rather use stairs than a ladder for moving between floors, particularly for some extended period while you sit on the floor and cry with your head in your hands. :D
Good luck!, and keep us posted.:cool: