Saturday, May 21, 2011
Let's recap.
About six moths ago I started a project. It isn't the Eiffel tower or the Hoover Dam, but it does happen to be an engineering marvel in it's own way.
A spiral stair case, but not an ordinary spiral staircase. It isn't the steel and grating spiral staircases that we've all climbed. It also isn't a large carpeted monstrosity from the art deco of the 70's. Nope - over the last six months I've worked with my brother to build a spiral staircase worthy of "Cordial Wood". It is an all wood spiral staircase made of solid white oak from Woodland Improvements. I shouldn't say it's ALL wood - it just appears that way. The stairs were ready to be installed for about 3 months, but I had to wait for the house to warm up in the spring to install it.
Anyway, enough with the rambling. Here are some old pics, some new pics and the story of a beautiful (if I do say so myself) staircase.
Here is where this project got underway. A pile of rough cut wood that needed to be planed and joined.
From there I had to glue up the planks into larger slabs of oak that would be suitable for stair treads.
While I was prepping the wood I went up to the house and tried to figure out where the staircase should sit in the house. I wanted to get it as far out of the way of traffic as possible while making sure that people wouldn't be hitting their heads on the loft beams. This is where I pictured the staircase going.
Back at the shop I was busy cutting out the stair treads and applying the varnish. After building the drying rack it was a pretty slick operation.
Once I had a solid idea of the staircase diameter and placement in the house I was ready to do a mock-up of the stairs. For those of you that follow this blog you know how much I love making models and mock-ups. In theory it should make it so there are less *ahem*...let's say 'moments of contemplation' later on. The mock up gave me the angle & diameter of the railing. I'll talk more about that process a few pictures down.
Here is another shot of the mocked-up stairs. This is when I started to really get excited for the final product.
Now that the stair treads were pretty much finished it was time to focus on the railing. To say this was an overwhelming challenge would be an understatement. I worked with my brother to build a large, flat, wooden circle that would essentially stretch and twist into a helix. Here are three pictures. One of the jig area, the second is me placing the jig blocks and wooden laminated strips, and one of the finished railing.
Let's jump forward to today. Melissa and her fiance Matt, Anthony, Mary, Ed & Roxanne, and Jim came up to help install the stairs. Here are some pictures of the 'staircase party.'
Here is Melissa picking out the order of the treads. We wanted to make sure the pretty treads were in the right places...e.g. good looking tops at the bottom of the stairs, good looking edges for eye level, and good looking bottoms for the top treads.
Here are Matt, Anthony and I getting going on installation. Matt held the center core in place and started sliding the pieces to Anthony and I was running the drills and fastening it all together.
Progress.
Here are some more general assembly pics.
Matt and I preparing for and putting the landing in place.
After the treads and landing were in place it was time to go back and install all of the spindles.
Finally Jim, Ed, Anthony and I were ready to stretch the railing into the helix and attach it to the spindles.
Here are some finished photos.
From the bottom:
From the top. If you look close you can see the brass accents for the fasteners that tie the railing to the spindles.
About six moths ago I started a project. It isn't the Eiffel tower or the Hoover Dam, but it does happen to be an engineering marvel in it's own way.
A spiral stair case, but not an ordinary spiral staircase. It isn't the steel and grating spiral staircases that we've all climbed. It also isn't a large carpeted monstrosity from the art deco of the 70's. Nope - over the last six months I've worked with my brother to build a spiral staircase worthy of "Cordial Wood". It is an all wood spiral staircase made of solid white oak from Woodland Improvements. I shouldn't say it's ALL wood - it just appears that way. The stairs were ready to be installed for about 3 months, but I had to wait for the house to warm up in the spring to install it.
Anyway, enough with the rambling. Here are some old pics, some new pics and the story of a beautiful (if I do say so myself) staircase.
Here is where this project got underway. A pile of rough cut wood that needed to be planed and joined.
From there I had to glue up the planks into larger slabs of oak that would be suitable for stair treads.
While I was prepping the wood I went up to the house and tried to figure out where the staircase should sit in the house. I wanted to get it as far out of the way of traffic as possible while making sure that people wouldn't be hitting their heads on the loft beams. This is where I pictured the staircase going.
Back at the shop I was busy cutting out the stair treads and applying the varnish. After building the drying rack it was a pretty slick operation.
Once I had a solid idea of the staircase diameter and placement in the house I was ready to do a mock-up of the stairs. For those of you that follow this blog you know how much I love making models and mock-ups. In theory it should make it so there are less *ahem*...let's say 'moments of contemplation' later on. The mock up gave me the angle & diameter of the railing. I'll talk more about that process a few pictures down.
Here is another shot of the mocked-up stairs. This is when I started to really get excited for the final product.
Now that the stair treads were pretty much finished it was time to focus on the railing. To say this was an overwhelming challenge would be an understatement. I worked with my brother to build a large, flat, wooden circle that would essentially stretch and twist into a helix. Here are three pictures. One of the jig area, the second is me placing the jig blocks and wooden laminated strips, and one of the finished railing.
Let's jump forward to today. Melissa and her fiance Matt, Anthony, Mary, Ed & Roxanne, and Jim came up to help install the stairs. Here are some pictures of the 'staircase party.'
Here is Melissa picking out the order of the treads. We wanted to make sure the pretty treads were in the right places...e.g. good looking tops at the bottom of the stairs, good looking edges for eye level, and good looking bottoms for the top treads.
Here are Matt, Anthony and I getting going on installation. Matt held the center core in place and started sliding the pieces to Anthony and I was running the drills and fastening it all together.
Progress.
Here are some more general assembly pics.
Matt and I preparing for and putting the landing in place.
After the treads and landing were in place it was time to go back and install all of the spindles.
Finally Jim, Ed, Anthony and I were ready to stretch the railing into the helix and attach it to the spindles.
Here are some finished photos.
From the bottom:
From the top. If you look close you can see the brass accents for the fasteners that tie the railing to the spindles.
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