New Bottom Tread

I had to add a new bottom tread to an old flight of stairs the other day. 

Quite a bit of work but it will look good when it's carpeted. 

Boarding Up Stairways

I've taken on an office refurb in Malvern that involves lots of stud walls and timber work. My first job was to board up a few stair wells that were no longer needed. 

A fairly straight forward job but one that needed to be done first to make the area safe to work in. 

Joist added

Way in to the cellar to be boarded up

New beam and joists added

finished boarded 

Lots more pictures from this job to come - I've got plenty to do there, sorry these aren't that interesting!

Fitting An Oak Stairs With Winders

an interesting job this week where some of the guys I work with and myself fitted a flight of oak stairs in an old property.

Flight in place and starting to get glued and pegged together

Fitting the winding treads

You can never have too much glue when putting together a flight of stairs!

Glue blocks added to stop any squeaks!

Ready for some handrail and spindles

The finished item!

Landing upstairs 

 It took a little longer than we expected but they went in well and looked great when we were finished. I think it's a full year since the last time I fitted any stairs so it's good to keep the skills in my mind.

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!

Shuttering Steps

Back on the swimming pool this weeks to build the form work for the steps into the pool.

The finished steps

Building the underside of the steps. There needs to be a void underneath for duct work

A side view of the shutters. I enjoyed putting this together as it's only the inside measurements that are critical



My work area was not great!  It was raining and the layer of sand we put down to protect the floor slab stuck to all my tools.

A picture showing some of the bracing for the strings and the two tie bars holding both sides to each other

The completed stutters. There is two layers of steel mesh tied together inside the form work

We mixed the concrete by hand. Here's Neil and Richard levelling off and vibrating the concrete

The completed stairs in the pools with the side shutters off

Finished job. We'll remove the underside shutters on Monday

Stripping the shutters off yesterday I was pleased with how these stairs turned out. I'm just looking forward to when we've got some water in the pool and I get to try them out for real!

Oak Stair Gate

I fitted this oak stair gate for a customer a few weeks ago to stop their dogs from going upstairs.

 

I was really pleased with how it turned and it would be great for anyone with kids who wanted something more in keeping with a period property.

Can be made and fitted to order.

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!

Fitting Stairs

It's been a long while since I've fitted any stairs. This can be the trouble with the huge range of jobs a carpenter is expected to do, it can be a long time between doing certain jobs - good job I've got a good memory for things like this!

Fitted flight of stairs

There's two flights to fit, we finished the first today and made a good start on the second. As there is winders (the angles steps that make the flight go round the corner) some of the assembly has to be done on site using lots of glue and wedges.

Underside of stairs

The first flight went in well, we've temporary propped it up until we've built the stud wall to carry the back corner of the stairs (although they do hold their own weight now). I've still got to infill the sides and add handrail at a later date to these. 

Checking the treads are level

The second flight are directly below the first and are the same size with three extra treads on the bottom to give it the extra height.

Dry fitting the second flight of stairs to mark positions

We dry fitted these in this afternoon as they're in a tighter space than the first ones. It's going to be much more difficult to get to the underside to fix the treads and wedges so we need to make sure everything is cut ready. It's at time like this I could do with a small apprentice to get into the tight spaces (I remember being sent on my belly to fix the last few glue blocks!).