Here’s the third video in my using Progecad with StairDesigner series.

StairDesigner does a very good job of calculating and technically drawing the stair and you get all parts and working documents automatically.

But it falls short when it comes to specific design features like turned newel posts, spindles, moulded handrails etc.

Luckly all StairDesigner projects can be exported in DXF and easily reworked in most CADD programs.

I have used Autocad to design stairs for many years now.

Stair design with only Autocad is slow and error prone. It could take me several hours, sometimes days, of drawing to get the working plans for a stair and even then errors went un noticed and were giving us unpleasant surprises when putting the parts together in the workshop.

Over the years I developed some simple Autocad tools to speed up the work but everything remained very cumbersome and SLOW!

 

When StairDesigner came along everything got faster and easier!

The drafting errors practically disappeared and everything fitted perfectly in the workshop.

Besides the technical side of things StairDesigner’s automatic 3D made a great impression on my customers.

3d was always my big problem.

2D technical design was slow but OK with AutoCad, I just appreciated so much the ease compared to drawing the stair full size on the workshop floor, but when a customer asked for a perspective view my troubles started.

I’m not a great artist and though perspectives of furniture worked OK, stairs turning in all directions were making life hell.

Especially as people don’t pay you for a perspective drawing it’s just for free and takes for ever to set up.

The worst would be someone asking for variations, “and what if we added turned posts and changed the spindles to metal tubes ??”

Back to the drawing board!

 

Even when AutoCad came along with it’s 3D, building a 3D stair although possible, was a major nightmare  and challenge.

Drawing a 3D stair in Autocad  could bankrupt us before the customer even considered signing a cheque!

StairDesigner made life easier for basic designs but as we made more and more higher end stairs the projects quickly went over StairDesigner’s 3D functions.

So I combined the two.

StairDesigner draws the basic 3D and Autocad or Progecad do the rest.

It still takes a bit of time, but the effort is often well worth it.

A well designed stair shown off to it’s full advantage will often sell much better even though more expensive than a cheaper model.

And it’s so much more fun to design and make!

 

Here’s how I add turned posts and some extra fittings to a StairDesigner 3D stair.

And then light it up to look classy.

StairDesigner’s DXF export works well with most CAD programs so it’s not limited to using ProgeCad.

Progecad is a great cheap 2D/3D solution that works just like AutoCad for less than 1/10 of the price!

 

Hope you enjoy.

Leave a comment even if you didn’t!

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Click here to buy StairDesigner ProDXF

Click here to buy Progecad 2011

 

For more information on using ProgeCad and AutoCad with StairDesigner, take a look at these articles:

http://stairdesignsoftware.net/how-to-design-curved-strings-and-handrails-using-stairdesigner-and-progecad-3d

http://stairdesignsoftware.net/how-to-build-a-3d-stair-project-with-stairdesigner-and-progecad

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

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Technorati Tags: autrocad, cadd, drawing stairs, ProgeCad, stair, Stair building, stair calculations, stair design, stair plan, stair software, stari construction

ProgeCad, Using Stair Designer autrocad, cadd, drawing stairs, ProgeCad, stair, Stair building, stair calculations, stair design, stair plan, stair software, stari construction

Here’s an email sent to me by Serge from France.

Serge is a subscriber to my email list and has no previous experience in stair building.

Serge has built himself a stair using only the free software and resources available on this web site.

I was very impressed by the way Serge undertook his project.

I think that everybody can benefit and learn something from his story and experience.

Thanks Serge for sharing this.

Here’s the translation of Serg’s email. The original is published on my French site:

http://www.stairdesigner.org

 

 

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Hello Ness,

Excuse me for this long letter, but you can use it as testimonal.

To start, I’d like to thank you for all the help and advice you have given on your site and emails.
6 months ago I went to a well known stair manufacturer in France to order a cheap staircase to enable me to access the first floor of my garage.

This stair was a ¼ turn, with a total height of 3,28 m, at a 95° .

After a long time spent trying to force his industrial software to build a stair that would fit me, the salesman could only offer me a 15 step quart turn with a 90 angle.

This was no good to me at all. So I decided to built it myself.

I am not a professional woodworker, in fact I’m a scientist, but I always liked woodwork.
Browsing the wed for help and information I quickly found your software " Stair Designer " which gave me the answers to my questions.

With help of your documentation and tutorials, I quickly and easily got the hang of using the demo version of " Stair Designer ", and designed a stair that fitted my project.

Nonetheless, having at my disposal the plans of the parts, steps, stringers, posts and spindles walking(marches), silt, posts, and spindles, but without dimensions, I found myself in front of a choice: not being professional I did not want to buy the complete software,

I thought of buying your highly-rated plans (through your StairFile service),

or accept the challenge to reconstruct the plans from the specifications given by the demo version of Stair Designer.

I opted to take up the challenge and draw the plans myself.

I revised my trigonometry and rolled up my sleeves to learn to use, the free version of ProgeCad that is downloadable from your web site.

My rudimentary English allowed me to understand the basics of this professional level CAD software and I managed to draw the plans and use Progecad to get all the part sizes.

I must admit that the stair template models with their free  plans were of great help as references, and enabled me to work and move forward  confidently.

I chose to make the stairs in spruce, using only the minimal tools that I had at hand, a jointer, circular saw, a router and an orbital sander.

I worked part time at my own pace, for 2 months (I’m retired so I do have some free time) and machined up the parts.

Yesterday I went to install and everything fell into place perfectly, just like the drawn model.

For anyone who would like to undertake a similar challenge, I would humbly give the following advice:

- Use StairDesigner to design your project. It’s easy to use and covers most of the different types of stairs that might want to build.

- If you don’t have a good understanding of geometry and maths, and can’t use some sort of CAD software don’t try to draw up the plans by yourself. Use Ness’s StairFile or StairPlan service, it will save you hours of calculations and possibly expensive errors.

- If you don’t have a few good portable tools and some mastery of woodworking, either get someone else to help with the woodwork or subcontract it.

Otherwise go to it!

It is a fantastic experience, that will make you use your muscles and your brain and give you a lot of satisfaction.

 

To conclude, thanks again to Ness, you can be proud of yourself to have enabled a complete beginner design and build a stair that’s a just a little complicated.

On the other hand it’s a real commercial flop for you, because with your help and tools I have managed to do for free what would have cost me dearly otherwise.

I feel a little guilty of using your advice and support without paying.

So a thousand thanks for continuing to teach freely for our pleasure and profit.

Serge

 

Thanks to Serge fro this very instructive email.

 

If you want more information on using the demo version of StairDesigner and Autocad or Progecad read these articles:

http://stairdesignsoftware.net/stair-software-to-modify-stair-plans

http://stairdesignsoftware.net/using-autocad-with-a-stair-calculator

http://stairdesignsoftware.net/using-a-stair-template

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Technorati Tags: autocad, cadd, ProgeCad, stair, Stair building, stair construction, stairdesigner, stairsoftware

Customers and Users, ProgeCad, Using Stair Designer autocad, cadd, ProgeCad, stair, Stair building, stair construction, stairdesigner, stairsoftware

Here are a few videos to show you around my workshop and share with you the jobs we are actually working on.
If you would like more information on specific topics just leave a comment to tell me and I’ll see what I can do.

***********************************

Jobs at hand November 9th 2011

If you find these videos interesting please leave a comment:

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Technorati Tags: curved handrail, Curved stairs, curved string, handrailing, Stair building

Quick tour of the workshop curved handrail, Curved stairs, curved string, handrailing, Stair building

How to use StairDesigner to build a platform and horizontal railing

Several people have asked me how to draw platforms and mezzanines with StairDesigner.

In reality StairDesigner is not really made to draw these parts and only calculates and draws the stairs, but with a little twist you can turn StairDesigner into a very useful tool for building a platform or mezzanine of any shape. The idea is simply that you build a stair with zero height. In this case StairDesigner flattens the stair down to a platform and adds the horizontal railing with all the parameters that you can give to a stair.

Of course StairDesigner doesn’t draw the beams and joists but you do get all the railings spindles, posts etc. drawn up and listed in the cutting lists. The drawing can be exported in 2D and 3D DXF to be loaded into Autocad or Progecad for detailing and 2D presentations.

Here’s a video that shows how to do this.

Once you have built the stairs and the platforms separately you can assemble them in Autocad or Progecad to make the working plans or build really nice 3D presentations.

I’ll be making a short video to show how easy this is in the near future.

Don’t forget that you can download your free version of Progecad 2D from the “Free Download” page of this web site.

The full 3D version 2010 has the same functions as Autocad for 299 euros, that’s less than 1/10th of the price of a full Autocad. You can buy   full version using the “ BUY PROGECAD FULL 3D VERSION” PayPal button on the “Free Download” page.

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Technorati Tags: Add new tag, build a mezzanine, build a platform, how to make a stair, Mezzaine, platform, Stair building, stair construction, stairdesigner

Using Stair Designer Add new tag, build a mezzanine, build a platform, how to make a stair, Mezzaine, platform, Stair building, stair construction, stairdesigner

Using a stair template

The quickest way of designing a stair is to just take an existing stair design and edit it to fit your project.

To see a quick video demonstration click this link:

Using stair templates video

You can download a example stair project from the download page of this site. Each example contains the StairDesigner file and all the workshop documents to make the stairs.

If the stair fits your needs you can just take the plans and start building, but it’s more likely that you will have to adjust the stair dimensions to your specific project. With StairDesigner adjusting a model stair to fit any size is very fast and easy.

In this article I’m going to show you how to take one of our model stairs and make it fit another completely different stair well.

If you want to learn how to design a stair from a model read this article, then download the original model and follow the steps through yourself.

You can download the model from the download page or use the link below:

http://stairdesignsoftware.net/downloads/qturn%20winders%20closedstring.rar

Once downloaded decompress the file and open the SDS file in StairDesigner.

Here’s the stair drawing in StairDesigner:

I want to adapt the stairs to another stair well, here’s the sketch of the new stair well:

Here are the changes that I want to make to the stairs.

- I want to change the stair from a quart turn to a half turn stair.

- I want to change the stair height from 2800mm to 2750mm.

The stair well walls are not right angled and the angles have been measured by taking diagonal dimensions across the stair well (2545 and 2589).

To simplify the assembly I want to keep the inner string and newels at 90° and adjust the outer strings to fit the walls.

Changing the stair well dimensions

StairDesigner stores the newel post offset parameters with each newel post. As the newels posts are erased when a stair is redesigned, to keep the same newel post offset parameters, it’s a good idea to note these down before changing the stair well dimensions.

Right click on a newel post to open the newel post menu :

Choose NEWEL POST in the menu and StairDesigner will display the NEWEL POST PARAMETERS for the selected post.

Write down the newel post offset parameters and reference point for future reference.

Repeat for each newel post.

Changing the stair well parameters

To start we will change the stair design to fit a right angled stair well.

To do this in StairDesigner open the STAIR WELL PARAMETERS dialog box by clicking the Stair Well Parameters button:

In the STAIR WELL PARMETERS dialog box change the flight parameters and add a 3^rd flight, your screen should look like this:

Note that the stair no longer complies with the STAIR RULE:

2R+H=>600<640 and the OK button is red.

Let’s use StairDesigner to optimize the stairs.

Click the HELP button:

You should see this screen:

StairDesigner proposes changing the 15 rises to 14.

Click OK and the STAIR WELL PARAMETERS dialog box will display with the new stair parameters and the OK button green.

In the STAIR WELL PARAMETERS box Click “OK” and StairDesigner will draw the stairs with their new dimensions:

We will now insert the newel posts:

Place the mouse over the position of the newel post and click right:

In the NEWEL POST PARAMETERS dialog box change the parameters to the original values that you have noted down earlier on.

Here are the intermediary newel post parameters:

Once you have inserted all the newel posts your stair is redesigned to fit another stair well.

It should look like this:

And in 3D:

In my next article I will be showing you how to use Stair Designer TRIANGULATION tool to adjust the stairs outer strings to follow the non right angled outer stair well.

You can download this article in PDF by clicking the link below:

stairdesignsoftware.net/downloads/using templates.pdf

If you want to see a video of how to edit a template click below:

http://stairdesignsoftware.net/using-stair-templates-video

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Technorati Tags: Add new tag, DIY stair plans, plans for stairs, plans to build stairs, Stair building, stair plans

Using Stair Designer Add new tag, DIY stair plans, plans for stairs, plans to build stairs, Stair building, stair plans