As proud as i am of this project, I humbly post it realizing that most of the project consists of things i've leaned here and on other forums.
A year ago I replaced the carpet on my staircase with oak that has a walnut inlay. My neighbor liked it so much he convinced me to tackle his spiral staircase. The 'fee' was a TS55 to enable me to handle the angled cuts.
When i built mine I didn't have any Festools. Other than preparing the stock, this was built 100% on-site with Festool tools.
We removed all the carpet, then used a sawzall to remove the nosing from each stair tread. Here's how it looked as we got started;
Each tread had a concave curve on the left side, a convex curve on the right and it was shaped like a wedge of pie.
The prep consisted of jointing, planing and glueing up 8 slabs that were then cut into 16 treads. Once glued up, we used a RS2E to sand them smooth;80, 100, 120, 150 then 180 grit. I used the OF1400 to cut a groove on each end, which was filled with a strip of Wenge.
I used the TS55 to cut each slab to rough size. if there's another tool that would have let me cut that angled cut, i'm not familiar with it.
I attached a 5/4 lip to each slab. tried to use the Domino, but the fence kept slipping. Wound up using biscuits. Thought this setup on the MFT/3 might be interesting;
I used bench dogs made by John Cady, the guy who sells the custom Domino stuff on Ebay. they're attached to a rail from 8020. Then a clamping element held the 5/4 board while i cut the biscuit slots.
this entire staircase was installed without using a ruler or tape measure. Here's a picture showing how we used a story stick and an angle gauge for each riser;
The story stick uses a bar guage from Lee Valley. I transferred the length of the stick to each riser, then used a miter saw to cut them to length.
The key to this whole project was this template;
After watching every episode of woodworks at least 10 times, it was burned in my brain to use an MDF template. This template was set on each step, then pressed against each side and locked in place. we would then mark it where it needed to be trimmed to fit. Here's a pic of the pencil line showing where the template needed to be trimmed;
We would then use a cabinetmakers rasp (as david marks would call it) or a belt sander to trim the template to the line.
Continued....
A year ago I replaced the carpet on my staircase with oak that has a walnut inlay. My neighbor liked it so much he convinced me to tackle his spiral staircase. The 'fee' was a TS55 to enable me to handle the angled cuts.
When i built mine I didn't have any Festools. Other than preparing the stock, this was built 100% on-site with Festool tools.
We removed all the carpet, then used a sawzall to remove the nosing from each stair tread. Here's how it looked as we got started;
Each tread had a concave curve on the left side, a convex curve on the right and it was shaped like a wedge of pie.
The prep consisted of jointing, planing and glueing up 8 slabs that were then cut into 16 treads. Once glued up, we used a RS2E to sand them smooth;80, 100, 120, 150 then 180 grit. I used the OF1400 to cut a groove on each end, which was filled with a strip of Wenge.
I used the TS55 to cut each slab to rough size. if there's another tool that would have let me cut that angled cut, i'm not familiar with it.
I attached a 5/4 lip to each slab. tried to use the Domino, but the fence kept slipping. Wound up using biscuits. Thought this setup on the MFT/3 might be interesting;
I used bench dogs made by John Cady, the guy who sells the custom Domino stuff on Ebay. they're attached to a rail from 8020. Then a clamping element held the 5/4 board while i cut the biscuit slots.
this entire staircase was installed without using a ruler or tape measure. Here's a picture showing how we used a story stick and an angle gauge for each riser;
The story stick uses a bar guage from Lee Valley. I transferred the length of the stick to each riser, then used a miter saw to cut them to length.
The key to this whole project was this template;
After watching every episode of woodworks at least 10 times, it was burned in my brain to use an MDF template. This template was set on each step, then pressed against each side and locked in place. we would then mark it where it needed to be trimmed to fit. Here's a pic of the pencil line showing where the template needed to be trimmed;
We would then use a cabinetmakers rasp (as david marks would call it) or a belt sander to trim the template to the line.
Continued....
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