darinlwebb
Active Member
We just struck "Curtains", and I used some things from this thread to build our double staircase. It ended up being pretty solid, and the best part is that store's into an incredibly compact pile. This is based on the reference the @egilson1 shared above. Right now it has treads and risers for a 8' radius, 90-degree curved staircase, but a new set of rectangular treads would turn this into a straight staircase. Likewise a different set of trapezoids could be built to make a different curve.
Here's the staircase in the show, under construction, and the final pile of stock pieces (the treads and risers are inside the pile).
One big note here: The risers must make contact with the tread below for stability. We accidentally made our risers to short, and didn't have time or budget to replace them. For our first pass, we centered them, leaving about a 1/4" gap between the riser and tread below. This resulted in an uncomfortable amount of racking. We shifted them down to make contact with the tread, which reinforced the corner and provided a lot of stability. Additional bracing and the final skin made these very solid pieces.
Another note: When building this, a consistent tiny error on each step results in a large error over the course of the run. I tried to constrain errors in a way that would shrink the curve of the stair, rather than expanding it. I also made the bottom step the platform itself. This bottom 'tread' can grow or shrink with any errors in the rest of the curve. The only part of the staircase that needed to be in an exact position was the top step, to line up with the neighboring platform.
Here's the staircase in the show, under construction, and the final pile of stock pieces (the treads and risers are inside the pile).
One big note here: The risers must make contact with the tread below for stability. We accidentally made our risers to short, and didn't have time or budget to replace them. For our first pass, we centered them, leaving about a 1/4" gap between the riser and tread below. This resulted in an uncomfortable amount of racking. We shifted them down to make contact with the tread, which reinforced the corner and provided a lot of stability. Additional bracing and the final skin made these very solid pieces.
Another note: When building this, a consistent tiny error on each step results in a large error over the course of the run. I tried to constrain errors in a way that would shrink the curve of the stair, rather than expanding it. I also made the bottom step the platform itself. This bottom 'tread' can grow or shrink with any errors in the rest of the curve. The only part of the staircase that needed to be in an exact position was the top step, to line up with the neighboring platform.
