Monday, June 02, 2008

Heh...funny story...

So, look at this beauty...


That there is a staircase we built the other day. An old fashioned, notch-the-damn-treads-into-the-stringers staircase, good for probably a million plus trips and/or the occasional death by falling/murder. And if that wasn't enough, we built an even longer one!


There's the boys workin' on it, right there! You can see the notches already routed into the stringer. There are treads and riseers stacked to the right. They get slid in with glue and then wedged into place with...uh...wedges, and shims, which are also glued into place. Like so:



That is the back side. See the wedges and shims and how they are all glued in? When you've got the whole system glued together with a quality glue, in this case Titebond III, it's damn near indestructible!

While they assembled the big guy, I whipped up this little number to support the last stair tread, which will curve around the newel post and back into the carriage, sort of Poor Folks Grand.



All in all, a great day of carpentry ending with delivery on Friday.

Only one thing could have made it better.

The staircase could have been the right size.


Seems there was a little miscommunication regarding the length of each step. Just one itty-bitty inch, but wouldn't ya know it, those little inches add up. Each step longer, the rise (vertical measurement) remaining the same, the angle of decline ends up shallower and all of a sudden the 6 feet 8 inches required by the building code between each step and the landing or ceiling above kind of....disappears.
One good thing about a problem like that; you don't have to stand around scratching your head for an hour trying to think up what to do. The staircase must get lowered or the second floor must be raised. Simple.

Did I mention the staircase was well-built?

Goodbye weekend, hello high-pitched whine of machinery.

We delivered the new staircases at 10:30 this morning.

Good times.

9 comments:

  1. Were you that pleasant about it when it was happening? That first step looked nice anyway.

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  2. Oh, crud.

    Did whomever was responsible for the mistake get pushed down the staircase?

    (Should I ask who was at fault?)

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  3. This was a situation where there was fault to go around, but all of it above my level of responsibility.

    That made it far easier to keep cool headed about it.

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  4. Those are the ups and downs I guess.

    (badooom tshhhhh)

    Really, I feel shame for that.

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  5. Does that staircase go both ways?

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  6. Anonymous10:58 PM EDT

    The people I work with are often off by an inch or six when they file their finished work.

    Of course, when you're dealing with writers, the trims are a little easier.

    The process is, however, still accompanied by a lot of high-pitched whining.

    Mike

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  7. I am distraught that my comment didn't amuse at least one person. I've lost my shimmer. Now I am nothing more than a dull wit. 'Tis better to be no wit at all than a dull one.

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  8. It amused me but I was just snickering at some fuzz on my desk a second ago so that really means nothing.

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  9. Lucky you Don....Martha tagged me, and now I am tagging you.
    Your turn to be "it".
    See the blog for details...

    ReplyDelete