Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Laying Out Basic Stair Stringers
Fine Homebuilding Article: The essence of laying out stair stringers is straightforward. You use a framing square to draw the stair’s notches on the stringer, then you cut them out. If you’ve done the math (it’s gradeschool stuff) and the layout right, the tread cuts will be level and the riser cuts plumb.
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3 comments:
This is a nice little tutorial for those who might be unfamiliar with how to layout stairs. I've never seen a strip of wood used as the jig, I typically use the brass stops.
This article says to trace the first stringer for subsequent stringers, which is an operation I'm always conflicted about. On one hand, it's easier and faster, but on the other hand, if you measure each stringer, there's no chance to compound error.
I just always wonder which was is better.
I have cut a good amount of stingers and it is one of the hardest easy things I have done. It falls in the easy category because there is pretty much just one way to do it and it is pretty much flawless, but its on the hard spectrum because its pretty tedious and stressful. Stringers have to be exact, must be marked accurately, must be cut accurately with level surfaces with no notches or raised areas, you can't over cut and then you have to come back in with a jigsaw or crosscutter. They use a wood strip as the guide for the framing square, which is what I have used, but I've seen the little attachments in the shop and am curious to see if I like them. I don't see why I wouldn't. As for the clarity of the instructions, I thought they are very clear and I'm confident someone who hasn't done this before could follow them.
I agree with Frank that it's dodgy using the first cut stringer as a template. At the same time, though, since there's usually just two stringers and they have to match regardless, if you screwed the first one up your project is already done for, or whatever you're going to have to do to the fix it would probably not be helped by having mismatched stringers. Two points then: 1) Don't screw up the first stringer. Easy enough. 2) If you can, check the first stringer in situ before using it as a template for the second. This gives you a chance to correct an error before passing it on to the mate.
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