Cut station on the patio.



Lots of trips up and down the steps ...



Starting the layout to blend in three winding steps to match the rise and stride of the old stairs.



I start cutting in the wood and scribing it to the irregular surfaces it sets on.



The frame complete, awaiting the treads tomorrow.

Gary

Stairs are one of those things when you walk on you can tell right away if they are flat with the world or not ! Those look like you would have fun doing if you were a novice at it.Just resently I got to build my first spiral staircase out of bent check plate treads and 1"1/4 sch 40 handrail with mid rail and toe kick! and if that wasn't enough it had a landing half way up . Thank God my welders are good at filling gaps .I should have started at top and worked my way down cause it got better on the way up after the first few rises gettin the hang of it. Some day I would like to make one out of wood (NOT)

Thanks
Kurt

We've been looking through catalogs for spiral staircase kits, since we've got a set of stairs in our old house so steep that it's almost a ladder. They're not cheap, but they break down into components that are actually pretty easy to pack and ship...except for the hand rail. The risers and treads are no problem, they're modular. The pipe that forms the backbone is a standard item, buy it at any plumbing supply place. But there's no getting around the fact that the handrail really needs to be one piece if you want it to function properly AND be good looking. And no amount of creative packaging makes it easy to pack and ship a sixteen-foot long , sixty-inch diameter slow spiral. It's almost a worst-case scenario in packaging inefficiency, when you think of it.

We may be trying a "winding" stair landing at both the bottom and the top of another set of stairs that need rebuilding, very similar to what Gary is making right now. Although our 1940's built "old" place is just a wet-behind-the ears whipper-snapper compared to the creaky old castle that Gary was living in, it seems that leaving a lot of room for spacious staircases wasn't a top priority in either era. I'm keeping a close eye on the proceedings, looking for good tips and tricks.

Hi Sean,

Laminate the railings in place. Install the staircase components around the stalk. Bolt on railing uprights which have an interface bracket at the top of each upright. Now begin to lay in and laminate your railing strips right in place. As the laminated plies add up, the formed railing becomes a structural member. . No packing or shipping. The whole thing can be flat packed, and the railing can be made from ripped strips of whatever wood - or from lattice strips.

Gary



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/18/2013 03:37AM by barnespneumatic.

Done.

That looks great. Much better than having to install a warning system that hollers "watch out for that last step!"

Stairs will indeed tell on you. You will know immediately, and every time - that the geometry is not correct.

Note here the concrete base plate thickness makes up part of the height of the last riser. That keeps all the step risers equal.

You step down onto the basement floor - NOT the support base which I cast. But - look at the early pics when the base was there and the whole area was open. You'd think that you were working with that defined area I'd cleaned and cast. If I had laid out according to the flat base and remaining steps - then I'd have made a tripping hazard. That's because you actually step "outside the box" so to speak - - when you step down the extra 1 1/4" from the cement structure's base onto the actual basement floor!

Whenever you are laying out a staircase - you have to keep in mind where you actually step off, and where you actually land. Even stepping off can be an easy mistake. Do you step off the existing top deck - OR - is there another redundant top step, on that same level, which begins the staircase? Staircases are complex. That's why most contractors buy the prefab cut risers and just try to stick them in place - and minimize the errors top and bottom. It's good to learn how to do it correct. Everybody loves it when you know how to plan it correctly because they ALL have a bungled staircase that they have to use somewhere - and hate it.

Gary



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/18/2013 03:48AM by barnespneumatic.

Simple.

Nice.

Lon

"Everybody loves it when you know how to plan it correctly because they ALL have a bungled staircase that they have to use somewhere - and hate it."

Yeah, no kidding. Some genius added another three inches to the top of the two inches that someone else added to the top of our entry stairs first landing. That means an extra five inches of height with no extra steps. It's so hard on the knees coming down that I find myself looking for excuses not to go downstairs. The dog has to be lifted down after his walks when he's sore. It's an ergonomic disaster, and soon to come out.

Nice work Mr. Barnes! Are you SURE you don't want to come up and visit...with your toolbox?

Well, we could have a seminar on laying out staircases, right here on the forum. But we'd need to set a time and prove (by posting "present" ) that we had a class. Think how all you Docs and Pilots and Engineers could impress your friends ..... if only you knew how to lay out a staircase stringer! Haha.

Very nice work indeed ! For most people or at least me it is easier to demo the whole thing and start from scratch. But to repair or rebuild partial and blend to match existing like you have done with out side work brick and stone is difficult . The painted simulated bricks really look good . It is so hard to blend old with the new . You have mastered that Gary Good luck to you Sean with your home projects ! Sounds like you got her handled . So who did you end up giving that S.S.BARNES to? It must have been a gift for someone or would have seen or at least heard a story or two about it. The old ( haven't sourced air ) story will only fly for a couple months ya know Come on put the chores down and do some hunting !!! Or at least give me a good price on it . I will come and break it in fer ya say couple hundred rounds ??? HeHe

Thanks
Kurt

BUSTED!.

Ouch! Guilty as charged...

You're right, Kurt, I've been remiss in keeping you all updated about the fate of the SS Woody (Gary is probably hoping THAT nickname doesn't stick). I finally got my air supply sorted out, and I've got a couple different weights of .308 cast & sized lead bullets in hand, courtesy of the fine folks at Surefire Casting (does this qualify for a discount on my next order, Jerry?) I got it scoped with some QD rings, and I've even been out to the range to shoot it... but I didn't bring a camera.

I did learn a couple things from my first range session. First off, trying to shoot at the (only) indoor range here in Juneau is going to be a problem. It was built as a handgun range, and is run by the Alaska Department of Game & Fish for hunter safety courses. It's configured for handgun and offhand rifle shooting, .22LR and handgun calibers only. It took an hour long class with the, ahem, extraordinarily zealous G&F instructor before I could even step foot inside, and he wasn't convinced that I should be allowed to shoot it there at all since it's neither a .22LR nor a handgun caliber. Worse yet, the only shooting benches on the firing line are flimsy fold-down jobs about 18 inches deep. I barely trust them to hold the bag of ammo (let alone the rifle); they're totally unsuitable for sighting-in or rifle bench work. I also learned that the SS Woody is LOUD...particularly indoors! Remember that this is not one of the shrouded designs, it's got a full-length insert for the .308 so the muzzle blast is considerable. The last thing that I learned was that I needed to get a more suitable scope. I'd robbed an intermediate-eye-relief Leupold off another rifle that I own, and it just didn't work as I intended. The gun needs a conventional scope with a higher magnification range.

After about an hour at the range I'd gotten it on paper at 50 feet, but the routine at the indoor range is just not going to work. The (only)instructor there insisted that the 40+ inch long rifle be pointed downrange at ALL times, no standing it upright to load or crank the targets back. Since it can't be safely set on the flimsy plastic bench, that means I had to scoot back the wobbly office chair I'd been trying to sit on and ever-so-carefully maneuver it down to a resting position on the floor, while remaining inside the confines of the narrow little plastic cubicle dividers, and keeping the muzzle downrange at all times, and then back up to the bench in the reverse of the previous maneuver...for every shot. It was more of an exercise in gun-related yoga than it was about shooting. In fact, it was weirdly reminiscent of being back in church doing the "stand,sit, kneel, repeat" routine that I refer to as "Catholic aerobics".

To add insult to injury, it turns out that the indoor range has a policy where they won't let kids shoot until they're at least ten years old, which my son is not quite, yet. I'm not going there back anytime soon, at least not with this rifle. There's a city-run outdoor range next door to the indoor range, and I'll be using that one instead. It's unsupervised, which should be a considerable relief after this experience. It's also, unfortunately, outdoors, and it rains here a LOT. While this rifle IS made of stainless, that still doesn't mean that I intend to get it soaking wet on a regular basis. Like all so-called "stainless" rifles, the internal parts and (in this case) the stock certainly are NOT waterproof, so it does take some care. The last year has been much wetter than average, and the average here is about enough to drown a frog. So far I've taken advantage of any breaks in the weather to either complete critical outdoor tasks around the house, or take the family out for a hike. I'm hoping for better weather this summer, and I'll get the gun out again when it's not sleeting sideways.

The gun works as advertised; the trigger pull is sweet, and it's got more kick that you'd expect for an air gun. I'm shooting it with the .308 insert so far, as the .62 SS smooth-bore barrel wants a slightly different slug diameter than the blued .62's need. I believe that Gary has a SS-specific mold or two made up already, and we've seen his massive set of graduated .62 sizing dies on the forum. I'm sure it's somewhere in his shop down south, but as you already know there have been a few minor projects keeping him busy. When he gets his affairs sorted out in MD and gets back to the shop in FL we'll work out a source of .62 slugs for the big barrel. In the interim I've purchased a Nikon 4.5 x 14 40mm rifle scope with their BDC reticle. It has multiple aiming points on the vertical axis, and I've got it mounted up to the gun in a new set of rings. I've also discovered that the plastic wads for a 20 gauge shotgun are nearly a perfect fit in the big bore, and I'm ginning up some rounds using those and some #9 lead shot that I've got.

It seems ironic that I live up in "wild" Alaska, yet I have to drive almost an hour each way to get to the "official" city rifle range. Juneau only has 40-something miles of highway, and as it turns out I have to drive almost all of it to get there. I've heard rumors that there's a spot nearer to my house where I can go, but I've got to confirm it before I start shooting there. The best bet would be to find some private property that I can use that's just out of the borough/city limits, and I'm working on that. Which brings up another point about shooting big-bore airguns. It's not like shooting other airguns, they're LOUD. The neighbors are definitely going to notice, as they sound pretty much like regular firearms.They're also far more dangerous than your typical pellet gun, and you have to treat them like a regular firearms when it comes to range safety and backstops. Airguns of this power level are quite capable of inflicting serious or even fatal injuries, it's not something you can do in your backyard unless you have a pretty special property like Gary now has down in Florida.

The old chestnut "yer gonna put yer eye out" is actually at the bottom of your list of concerns when you're shooting a Barnes. I will definitely be back to the range again, and I'll be equipped with a suitable scope setup this time. I'll also have some shotgun rounds ready in addition to the .308's. I'll let you know how it works out., and I'll try to remember the camera next time

Somehow sounds a bit different then the cable shows about Alaska. Next you'll be telling us that everybody does NOT wear animal skin clothing and travel by dog sled! Guess the Home Association tells you what color the shutters can be on your Igloo.



Gary

Yup, it's all igloos and polar bears up here all right... Down here in Juneau, we're actually closer to Seattle than we are to Barrow (where you find real polar bears).

The Alaska-themed TV shows are a bit of a contradiction since they most always contain nuggets of truth, but they always seem to bury it in a picturesque froth of misinformation and outright fantasy. They DO most often portray actual Alaskan locations and lifestyles, but in typical TV fashion they always seem to omit some critical details. Usually it's in the form of editing things so that it looks like they're in the middle of nowhere, when in actuality they're in some homesteaders equivalent to a backyard.

On the other hand I've also seem them portray some of the remote villages like they're just another small town, when in actuality they really ARE in the middle of nowhere. One of my families favorites was the "Flying Wild Alaska" show depicting the daily routine of their bush/commuter pilots up along the western coastline. It's hard for people from down in the lower 48 to truely comprehend just how far those villages really are from the rest of Alaska, let alone the rest of the United States. It's all about air travel up there, as the distances are huge and the country is next to uninhabited except for the widely scattered villages. Without airplane travel, the people there would never have any physical contact with the rest of the world.

I'm not sure why it goes both ways, I suppose it depends on how it fits their producers agenda.

Hi Sean,
Yeah - the vast distances and uninhabited landscape really smacks up against the fact that you have to drive an hour to get "out of town" and there is noplace to shoot. haha. I'd have thought there was ONLY places to shoot and "nowhere to get inside".
Guess you're a city slicker 49er. Didn't even know those existed. Probably get your Salsa from New York City and all. heheh.
Guess while you are digging out your foundation, you might as well put in a fifty yard underground shooting range.
Gary

Ok Sean I'm really glad you got a little time in on the trigger. I have never shot a BIG bore Hpa but I do know that the other airguns get real loud and not to back yard friendly! The crack that you get when squeezing of a couple is suprising and even the M smaller guns ( that are close to sound barrier) always amaze My friends . Wow they had no idea. The thought of living in such a vastarea ALASKA I guess in my polluted with reality show mind ... II didn't think about having only 40 miles of road.And like they say all roads lead to
Juneau ???? Well hope next time you get a couple camera shots of that beautiful airgun. Sorry to hear about your range issues . Some of the clubs here in my state even let you go full auto if you can afford the ammo . Guess you don't realize how good we still have it here even though if you purchase a pellet pistol .177or larger and anything with rifling , you need a PERMIT ?? Go figure .

Thanks
Kurt

A permit for a .177 airgun? By law they're not even firearms, at least not according to the feds. No gunpowder= no firearm, pretty simple.

The range thing is frustrating. The last town I lived in had a great range, on private property run by the local sportsmans association. Ten minutes drive and you were there, almost always had the place to yourself, covered benches, etc. Of course, if you wanted to use it in the winter you'd better have a backhoe tractor, since nobody plowed it except for special events.

And as far as where I'm living now, the real setup is that NO roads lead to Juneau...literally. You cannot drive here from anywhere, the only way in or out is by airplane or by boat. All our food and supplies come up the inside passage by ocean-going barge from Seattle and Tacoma, and when we go anywhere it's by Alaska Airlines. Unfortunately, they've got a monopoly going on in Juneau, since they're the only airline offering scheduled service here. As a result, airfares are roughly twice as much as the same distance trip would be anywhere else on their airline route schedule. You can almost always fly to Seattle cheaper from Anchorage or Fairbanks than you can from Juneau, even though it's another 700-800 air miles further to those non-monopoly cities.

Juneau is the only state capital that you cannot drive to, and though it seems sort of crazy it actually serves the state as a whole better that way. Primarily, it serves to remind legislators from the urban cities of the "rail-belt" (Anchorage / Palmer-Wasilla / Fairbanks) that life the rest of the state is NOT like living in the bigger cities. The urban / rural divide takes on a whole new meaning up here, since 3/4 of the states population (totaling less than a million) lives in the rail-belt cities, while the remaining quarter is spread out very thinly over the remaining 90% of the states huge landmass. It's far too easy for the "big city" senators and representatives to forget that the rest of Alaska doesn't have equal access to the comforts and conveniences that the urbanites consider normal.

If they ever move the capital to a city that you CAN drive to (and it comes up every year), the rest of the state is in trouble. The long-term trends are already problematical, since constant price increases for fuel and shipping are driving more and more Alaskans out of the rural areas and into the larger cities. Fuel prices in the rural areas were already much higher than the national average before the "great recession" started, and now it costs between $6 and $10 a gallon for gasoline in communities in the interior and the western part of the state. That's a huge hit for families that depend on snowmachines and ATVs to hunt for subsistence, especially since cash-economy jobs are pretty scarce in those areas.

Not something that you really think of every day, even if you do watch a lot of Alaska-themed TV shows. But it's never far from the minds of those who really do live out in the bush.

Modesty prevents me from telling you that when I won the 99 Michigan Big Bore Tournament ... ... They told us that we could NOT display any rifled pistols because they are considered FIREARMS in Michigan. Go figure.

Gary