Making stairs the hard way

TimB100 · Post by **TimB100** » Sat Nov 17, 2018 6:42 pm

Before I had my loft conversion I was not happy looking at the neighbours set up as the stairs looked really tight and dark. I really wanted it to be light and airy. So when setting out what work would be done with the builders I said leave the stairs to me.

As I said my brief was "light and airy" Out with the 3D cad and many hours later I came up with what I wanted. It would have curves and glass and be build around 10mm steel stringers, bolted together. 18 and 25mm ply for the steps and risers. I "caded" the curves to support the wire mesh for the plastering while I was at it.

The steel and Ply curves were water jet cut.

Investigation the glass it became clear that its would be expensive and either need a handrail or be laminated. I did the designs for a handrail but figured it was out of my league. I could not do it. The laminated glass was eye watering expensive.

So decided to use Acrylic sheet. Its 15mm thick and while it can scratch its very easy to polish out with just Tcut. The flexibility of machining meant I could make the shape exactly as I wanted it.

Below are pictures of the design, build and finally finished.