Making my own stairs

[MortarThePoint]

I know you can buy kits etc, but I've always wanted to make the stairs myself and I plan to do it in the way they typically do in the US. Make a rough stair and then clad with the trimmings. That said, I think it makes sense to use nice timber for the Stringer.

 

I have created some CAD and the plan is to create a half landing frame, that the stringers attach to and the OSB half landing goes on to. Currently I have Newel posts just notched onto the half landing frame and the upper stair stringer, but I think I would like them to form uprights of the half landing frame by extending all the way to the ground. That may be too ambitious and increase my chances of making a hash of it. If I was to do it, the upper stair stringer would need to bolt onto the Newel, rather than notching onto the top of the half landing frame. Perhaps it would be better as a tenon into the Newel, but that would be an interesting tenon to cut and I don't have a morticing machine either.

 

I think the Newel posts and the nosings are the only bits that are eluding me at the moment. Currently the stringer is 45mm x 220mm timber. Going is 220mm and Rising is 195mm. Newel height currently arbitrary.

 

 

[MortarThePoint]

Below is an example of the Newel / Stringer mortice and tenon.

 

@dnb I see you've just installed a Stairbox kit with half landing. How do they do it? Is it a tenon on the stringer into the newel post?

 

http://www.builderbill-diy-help.com/building-stairs.html

[MortarThePoint]

JAS Timber offer a service of cutting the mortice and tenon for you, but they are in Lancashire which is far from me in Cambridge.

https://www.jastimber.co.uk/newel-mortice-stairs-1-tenon

 

[dnb]

3 hours ago, MortarThePoint said:

Is it a tenon on the stringer into the newel post?

Yes, glued and held with dowels (or screws if the sides are inaccessible).

 

In case it is important to your decision, Stairbox don't supply half landings. I had to make this myself (I used some left-over timbers from other bits of the build)

[eandg]

43 minutes ago, dnb said:

Yes, glued and held with dowels (or screws if the sides are inaccessible).

 

In case it is important to your decision, Stairbox don't supply half landings. I had to make this myself (I used some left-over timbers from other bits of the build)

While that's true they've said to me that they can supply T&G oak panels to match the stairs but we'd need to make them up on site. So a workround of sorts - my fear was having mismatched oak. 

[MortarThePoint]

8 hours ago, dnb said:

Yes, glued and held with dowels (or screws if the sides are inaccessible).

 

In case it is important to your decision, Stairbox don't supply half landings. I had to make this myself (I used some left-over timbers from other bits of the build)

Thanks

 

How far does the first step of the upper flight overlap the half landing frame? I've designed it so that the riser is flush with the frame edge and it's only the nosing overlapping. That doesn't allow for any intermediate (internal structural) open stringers to notch on to the landing frame which would be nice for support. I hope that makes sense.