Saturday

I started installing treads.

I reused treads from the demolition of the garage / studio from about 10 years ago, plus I will need to cut up a few scaffold planks to create another four.

Each tread sits on a pair of angle brackets bolted to the stringers.

Because I am attempting to use up my stock of existing bolts there are some rather strange combinations of bolts that are too long packed out with oversize nuts as washer.

Sunday

More of the same. Eventually I used up all of my supply of existing second hand bolts and had to visit Bunnings to stock up on more. This was surprisingly expensive - about $120 worth of various bolts. At least this is the only expense - everything else is from existing materials.

My design is rather strange - as you would expect from someone building a staircase for the first time without reference to any manuals.

The top edge of the string is displaced upwards at the foot of the staircase by 140 mm due to the use of a base sled.

This means that at the start of the stairs all the treads have to be dropped down quite a way from the top edge of the stringer. This leads to some weird construction techniques and I have had to create the stringers out of three pieces of 4 x 2 in order to cover the bottom corners of the mounting brackets.

I hate to think how heavy the entire assembly is now - I will need to completely dismantle it in order to be able to load it on the trailer and carry it out to site.

Linda kept saying that something looked wrong with the design.

Going up is ok as the spaces between the treads allow shoes to land in the comfortable positions on the treads.

However, the ratio is 180 up and 200 along. This means that coming down there is only enough room to place the back 2/3 of the foot. Effectively you are descending the stairs on your heels - which does not feel very safe.

It is going to be pretty essential to install a safety rail.