Charpentier

The last week turned out to be a bit of an adventure.
After a few phone call, someone going to Liverpool passport office for me and a ferry ride, I ended up going with a friend to work in France for the week!

Leaving England behind

 The job was to fit a flight of stairs, handrail out a balcony and to second fix as much of the house as possible. We got loads done over some really long days.
Unfortunately the stairs were a nightmare to fit. Whoever had measured them to fit had given absolutely no tolerance to get them in. They had winders round a complete 180 degrees so things became a little difficult. It would have been much easier if they'd had gone in before the house was boarded or plastered. We got them in in the end but we did have to cut the wall in a few places to make them fit.

These stairs were the most awkward I've ever fitted

Not much space to get them in

 The balcony handrail also took some thinking about, this went in easy once we decided on our method and looked really smart when they were finished

Balcony to be hand railed off

 The only difficult with them was clamping the handrail to the newel posts as the glue went off. Tom and me managed to quickly knock together a wooden clamp that could be wedged up so the glue could go off over night, leaving a perfectly tight joint in the morning.

Clamping the handrail together with a quickly built clamp

The adjustable end of the clamp

Balcony handrail finished

 Tom and me worked really fast doing the second fit together, I think we were both impressed with the amount of work we got done in the time. We had a good system going and each stuck to a certain job to increase speed and keep the quality high.

Tom routing hinges out of the doors

Oak doors, pine linings and MDF architraves and skirting fitted.

All in all it was an interesting experience. I enjoyed working with Tom Weston again - who is an excellent carpenter (I think we both learnt a lot from each other) and made good friends with the plasterer, Rick, who came out with us. We worked hard and did a serious amount of hours, but I was missing my family by the end of the week so I was glad to come back to a rainy UK yesterday.
I learnt lots and got some good stories to tell, not much more you could ask for really!

Handrail

I had to add some handrail above some stairs today.
A nice job to do but I had to notch the newel post into the stairs to make it strong enough. I know I've said it before but I always make sure the newel has a good fixing.

Mortise and tenon cut by hand

 The handrail was mortised and tenoned into the top for strength then the hole thing fixed into place as one. I then added the spindles and any beading it needed before sanding it up.

Spindles in



Newel notched into staircase

The finished article

A nice job for a Wednesday afternoon

Making Stairs

My blog post about replacing the handrail last week made me think about the first flight of stairs I made back in 2006 with a good friend/mentor. Looking through some old photos I found some from when we made them.

The string and newels routed out to accept the treads and risers

 These were to go in a barn conversion Andy and I had been working on and off for well over a year everything was oak and everything had to be top quality. It's unusual to get site carpenters to make stairs on site in the UK, but as we had our own little workshop there with all the tools, the customer we were working for decided it was the best way he could get the stairs he wanted without having to wait for a joiner to make them and he was pleased with all the previous work Andy and I had done for him.

Using oak meant everything had to be spot on - no bruising wood together here!

 These were made out of oak (the strings were 2" thick!) and as we'd only ever fitted stairs before we went over our workings quite a few times before we started! With stairs a full sized template is sometimes the best way to go if you've got the space.

Beginning the first glue up

 We machined all the treads on the spindle moulder, routed the strings with a purpose made jig and cut the wedges on the bandsaw with another jig to make sure they were a perfect fit.

The glue up went well, with both of us working hard to get it together fast as we were using quite a fast setting glue

All the treads glued in position

Andy cleaning the excess glue from the first flight of stairs

The stairs fitted in position

The nice chunky newel posts really go well with the feel of these stairs

This was a great project and a great test of our skills, they came out looking perfect and on time, the customer was over the moon.

Anyone else taken on a large job like this that they'd never done before?

The Darkside Of Stairs

A fairly unrewarding job today. Not that's its not been challenging it's just that no one will really know what I've done when it's covered over.
I've been battening out the underside of a flight of stairs (and now I've got to plasterboard it). If I do it right the plasterer will be able to skim a beautiful twisting curve all the way up underside of these stairs.

Looking up at the underside of the stairs

As you can see from the photo I've had to add a fair few battens to get the curve right . I've also been using the electric plane to take the edges off of these battens on the correct side so it all flows from one side to the other as it twists. This is a job that would be eaiser with the traditonal lath and plaster but I can't see the plasterer mixing anything up with horse hair in!

Quite a frustrating job really - but it will look good and should add some character to the house when it's done!

Fixing handrail

The house We've been working in also runs as a B&B. The trouble is guests are a little heavy handed with the handrail on the stairs, banging bags on them as they walk up.

The handrail itself had become really lose and their were 6 spindles missing at the bottom and quite a few loose ones on the way up. Time to get out the glue!
There were some spare spindles I could use from another handrail that had been taken down previously. I first had to clean out the filler from all the mortice's and then cut each spindle individually with a little tenon on the end to provide a good Strong fit. I glued and screwed the tops to the handrail after cutting the mitre to suit. In the end it firmed up the whole handrail and the new spindles matched in pretty well, a quick polish and no one will no I've been there!
I've been asked to come back next year to finish off another handrail that has been altered, but this will be a bigger job involving turning a new newel post and altering steps, but one I'm looking forward to!