Steps to get up on a stage??

[gmff]

I need to get a set of steps to get up on to the stage from the gym floor that are 42" high and no more that 48" wide. A couple of design elements in the steps are: light enough for 4 eighth grade girls to lift, quickly assembled & disassembled, stored is a small area, look finished enough for the Von Trapp house. Any help would be great. Hand rails are not needed but adding them for the future might be needed (building supervisor would like them to meet lifesafety codes if these are used for other purposes).

 

[jonliles]

I would go to Homedepot and buy a couple of stringers - standard dimensions. I've bought them from Homedepot in 3 foot heights. You can face and tread the material as necessary. Sometimes you can buy pre-cut treads as well. Best bet for moving is magic sliders.

 

[FatherMurphy]

I'd agree that your best approach is probably a free-standing stair unit, and 2x12 stringers are about the easiest way to go about it. 42" stage height suggests 7" rises, and the stage itself can be the last step, so five treads at 7" each would be 35" tall. If you go with 11" standard runs (tread depth), overall depth would be 55", or 4'-7". If space is tight, you could use 10" treads, but less than that gets troublesome. If the treads don't overlap the stringers on the sides, then bolting railings on later will be extremely easy, although you'll have fewer fingerholds for carrying it around, so leaving some overhang and blocking out the railing posts is a better idea, and will look nicer as well. Any competent framing carpenter can help you with this, or if it's a school, the wood shop teacher can probably give you advice.

Another approach is building 1'x4' platforms with varying leg lengths, and tieing the platforms together into a stair, but that's actually more work, and ends up being about the same for weight.

This wouldn't be a piece that disassembles, though. It will be most solid if built in one piece. It shouldn't be too much weight for four kids to manage, though.

 

[robartsd]

I've used similar small stair sets to get from floor to stage. The sets I've used have casters on the back side of the set so that they can be tilted onto their back and easily rolled away for storage.

 

[gmff]

What we ended up with

Here is what we did. 4) 2x12 stringers, 6) 11" 3/4 plywood treads, 1) 2x4 on each side holding the the back up with a let-in 2x4 acrost to connect the stringer to, 1) 2x4 on each side on bottom to hold the upright 2x4 to the in place, a let in 2x4 across the bottom to tie the stringers together, a 24" section of plywood on back to keep everything from rocking. But it does take 6 eighth grade girls to lift these.

While we were at I used the left over meterial + one more peice of 3/4 plywood and made a set of 5 stairs that go 16" to make a step onto a 24" high platform.

 

[jonliles]

Re: What we ended up with

The only thing I would have done differently (without knowing the artistic vision) would be to make it narrower and try to use only 2 stringers.

I've had pretty good luck with furniture "magic sliders" sliding things onto/off-of stage with child-labor. You do have to lift the corners to remove the sliders once set in place.