Stair Design Software

As with all carpentry projects that have to fit into an existing building, installing a stair is the last and final test of the carpenter’s craft.

This is the crucial moment that tells if the project is a success or failure, both aesthetically and technically.

I know for myself that installation is the most stressful part of stair building.

Any minor error in measurement or design will show and at the very least give problems when the stair is being installed.

My greatest fear is that I have made a mistake in taking sizes it’s so easy to say two meters fifty and write 2m50 instead of 2m050mm.

For this reason I always advise taking the same dimension from several angles so that all sizes are cross referenced.

Besides the sizes the other aspect of a projects success is design.

I’m always apprehensive because I can never know for sure that the stair will look as good on site as on a computer.

The following stair was built to access an attic in an old farm house.

You can see the stair in the workshop in my last video here:

http://stairdesignsoftware.net/quick-tour-of-the-workshop-decembre-2011-curved-stair-ready-for-installation

We had to cut the beams to make a new stair well and assemble the stair in the well.

Here’s a quick video slide show of the installation.

Hope you enjoy it.

 

 

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Building laminated curved stairs, General Stair Building

Following last weeks article on curved strings and handrail here’s a short example of a wreathed string built with laminates, that I’m actually building in the workshop. This stair is being built for an old farm house in the French Alpes in the Vercours region, not far from where I live.

You can see this stair in  my workshop  visit video here:

<<Quick Tour of the Workshop>>

The particularity of this project is that the stair is following an existing stair. The original stair has probably been built by a village carpenter in the early 1900′s .

The original stair goes from the ground floor to the first floor and is made of a mix of woods ash, beech and some cherry, in facgt what ever the carpenter had at hand on the moment. All this together with rudimentary planning and a very rustique construction gives this stair a sort of charming very French country style.

My objective is to build a continuation of the stair, over the first stair,  that climbs to the second floor while keeping the same style and movement.

Here is an over view of the different stages of building the curved parts for this stair.

Here’s a photo of the existing stair :

After taking on site measurements the first job is to make a detailed drawing  of the stair well in Progecad.

This study will give me the exact dimensions to input into StairDesigner  to calculate the stair.

To build the curved string and handrail I use the StairDesigner drawings that I edit in Progecad to design a form to bend the laminates.

You can see how I draw up the form in Progecad in the article:

http://stairdesignsoftware.net/editing-a-curved-string-stair-in-autocad

Here’s the project built by StairDesigner:

To build the stringer and hand rail I have first to build the form in the workshop.

Once the drawings from Progecad are ready this is really very quick and easy. As I always have vertical battens drilled up and ready I only have to cut out the appropriate curved shapes using the full size templates printed with Progecad.

Here’s the form built in the workshop. Note how the vertical 60x60mm beams are drilled to hold threaded rods that will be used to pull the laminates into shape.

Here’s a photo of the form with the laminates clamped up and  pulled into shape.

The battens that are pulled down with the threaded rods are themselves drilled for intermediate bolts that enable me to adjust and distribute the pressure along the whole length of the batten.

An here’s the stringer and hand rail ready for marking up :

The stringer is marked up using the full size templates printed by StairDesigner:

I find the best way to do this is to punch small holes in the template at the intersection of lines. I then hold the template on the stringer with tape and mark the position of the intersections through the holes.

This is usually easier that trying to glue the template directly onto the stringer and machining through the template.

Once marked up the joints between the straight and curved sections  of stringer are machined up with jigs and a portable router.

Le sections of the stringer are then assembled and the edge veneers glued up:

In this photo you can see me cutting the step and riser housings with a portable router.

I use bands of flexy ply pinned onto the curve as a guide for the router.

Once the  housings are cut each step and riser is  adjusted into their  recesses.

Here are the stairs assembled in the workshop.

As you can see the stair looks very much like the 3D model made with StairDesigner.

The next job will be to build the hand rail from the laminated blank and assemble it onto the stair.

This stair has a laminated string that has roughly the same shape as the existing stair. The stair turns very tightly around a half turn of winders that make the string and handrail twist up very fast. As well as this the spindles are not parallel to the string but angled at 45°.

This is going to make it difficult to mark up the joints between the spindles and the stinger and hand rail.

We’ll see how I cope with this problem in my next article.

Happy wood working

Ness

Building laminated curved stairs, General Stair Building

People often ask me how I make curved parts for stairs.

These parts have such strange shapes that are far from the usual shapes worked by the average wood worker that they seem extremely difficult and complicated to make. Which is true to a certain extent but using todays technology, computers, and modern glue with a bit of patience and reflexion the task can be easier that it seems at first sight.

How to make a curved part  this is not an straight forward question to answer as it depends on many things.

Form me as a professional it firstly depends on what my customer wants.

A real situation is usually made of a mix of possibilities and constraints.

My first job as a professional craftsman is to make the customer aware of these and find a way to find the best compromise that fit the customer’s desires as close as possible.

One of the biggest constraints for my customers is usually cost. Most people want a specific design and quality at the lowest cost possible.

This puts a lot of pressure on me as when someone sees a curved stair they often see the beauty and have the desire to have one. On the other hand the curves are time consuming and expensive to make. In an attempt to bridge or at least narrow the gap between the desire and the possible I have tried to find new ways of building curves that simplify the process and make curved stairs more cost effective. On the way I have found that simplifying the construction of the curves has also made it possible for less experienced wood workers to build more complex shapes, so opening a whole new world of possibilities for amateur or part time stair builders.

As a result I have helped several amateurs build curved stairs that it would be nearly impossible to build by traditional methods.

A traditional stair would have to be made in solid wood  in a traditional manner where as a modern stair will allow me to use less time consuming techniques and have a more cost effective solution.

I started my career using only tradition methods of construction, with the advantage that as I’m fluent in French and English I used a mix of traditional French and English stair building techniques. For instance the French are very good at building strings out of solid wood whereas the English have developed very good hand railing techniques.

My philosophy in life is to respect the past to build the future. The past is infinitely rich but the present and future are full of possibility.

Due to the demand of curved stairs that cost less and also  for my intellectual amusement, that I started thinking about faster easier, more cost effective ways of building curved parts.

Today I use a mix of techniques that I adapt to the circumstances at hand.

For curved stringers I use 2 techniques according to the thickness and shape of the stringer.

I make thick central cut strings with my horizontal laminated technique you can read an article on this technique here:

http://stairdesignsoftware.net/building-a-curved-stair

Using horizontal laminates I don’t need to make a form to glue the laminates onto and I don’t have to cut the step rests.  This can drastically reduce the time for making this type of string.

When I have to make a cut string I always try to use this technique so as not to have to cut the notches for the step rests and the angles for the risers.

Here are a few stairs built using horizontal laminates:

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Unfortunately this method requires that the string have a minimum thickness of 60mm.

For traditional stringers less that 60mm I use normal laminated techniques using a form, onto which I glue a plywood core with a 2mm veneered skin.

You can see the principles used in this article:

http://stairdesignsoftware.net/editing-a-curved-string-stair-in-autocad

Here is a stair built using only veneered plywood laminates for the string and hand rail:

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When it comes to handrails, I use several ways to build continuous geometrical hand rails.

When the rail is part of a stair with a laminate string and has just a square or slightly rounded section, the easiest and fastest way to build it is simply to add the extra width to the string and cut the rail out of the top (or bottom) of the string.

Here are 2 photos of a hand rails in elm and walnut  that I have cut from the top of the stringers built with horizontal laminates:

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When the hand rail has a large sweeping curve it’s often possible to use the steps as support to laminate the rail but when the rail turns tightly and / or is deeply moulded, laminating is no longer possible.

In these cases I use variations of tangent hand railing techniques.

I mark out the tangents using AutoCad or Progecad’s 3D solid modelling tools.

Marking out the 3D geometry for building handrails directly in 3D with CAD is really much faster and more precise than marking out by hand or in 2D.

The simplest case is a round rail. The round rail has become popular in France for modern stairs often built onto stairs in cement or steel. Using the tangent method it’s easy to set out a wreathed rail in elliptical sections and assemble the sections with the bevel angle to get the helictical shape. The advantage being that the rail is a 2D elliptical curve and can be shaped simply  on a spindle moulder or with a router. Here are some hand rails on a cement stair made using the tangent method:

When the hand rail is square or moulded I use the tangent method for marking out elliptical curved laminates and apply the angles to twist laminates to get the helictical shape. This has the great advantage of making a twisted rail  where the sides are always at right angles to the top so moulding with a router or spindle moulder is very easy.

With this method a groove for a metallic under rail can be incorporated into the laminates and doesn’t have to be machined separately.

Here are a few exemples:

A pack of laminates being glued up on a jig that gives the twist:

Assembly of the hand rail

A special case of a moulded rail is when the rail has to follow a pre-existing metallic rail with no geometrical shapes.

In this case I glue up small sections on the existing metallic rail and add veneers the resulting form.

Here are some photos to show the general principals:

This photo shows how I get the shape by segments glued up on the metallic rail. The segments are held in place using springs:

Back in the workshop the form is veneered and shaped:

As you can see there are lots of different ways to build curves. Each technique had its advantages and set backs and I often mix different techniques on the same stair.

This is just a general over view and as with all wood working the details of how the technique is implemented is very important to determining the beauty of the final job.

Please let me know if you would like more information on these techniques.

You can contact me directly for personal training and coaching.

Don’t forget to leave a comment to tell me what you think.

Building laminated curved stairs, General Stair Building

Unlike most other woodworking projects, stair building, (other than simple straight stairs) often requires cutting and machining weird shaped parts.

This can make simple tasks awkward and when they have to be repeated many times, annoying and time consuming.

Two of these tasks that are found in all stairs are the cutting of steps and risers.

Straight steps and riser are no problem, but when the stair has winders things start getting complicated.

In winding stairs, steps and risers are all different shapes and angles. Cutting each one at a different angle can get nerve racking and tideous.

Now days these problems can be solved in many professional shops by using CNC machinery, unfortunately due to the high investment, this is not a solution for amateurs or small shops.

Over the years I have tried many different methods of cutting steps and risers. I have used big professional circulars saws with sliding tables, cross cut saws and made jigs for cutting on saws with travelling heads and laser alignment.

In Stair Building, parts are often heavy and cumbersome and it’s usually easier to move the tool rather than the part. So in the end I’ve come back to the simplicity of a hand held portable circular saw with a simple jig.

So here’s a couple of short videos that show how I cut steps and risers.

Although I use these jigs for cutting stair parts they are also very handy for all straight line cutting when odd angles are involved.

I’m not a very professional film director, so sorry for the low quality.

Here’s how I cut tappered steps on a stair with winders.

Here’s how I cut the risers to length.

If you have found these videos interesting please leave a comment :

General Stair Building