Hardwood Stair Treads
Using solid wood & buiding from
scratch
Hardwood Stair Treads can be made in a number of ways depending
on your application and stage of construction or rennovation.
With new home construction, solid hardwood steps can be made
from the ground up with your wood of choice. Often fabricated
off site and delivered with a crane for onsite manipulation.
Obviously for a rennovation projection this is not possible
and using an alternate method of installing
hardwood planks or "recover treads" is a better
option.
But for those of you that chose this option, here's a few
ideas...
Using Solid Wood.
Solid hardwood stairs: use 2x10 or 2x12 furniture grade lumber
for the stringers and treads and solid hardwood 1x8 for the
risers. Fancy joinery is used to groove the treads into the
stringers and blind fasteners are used to attach the risers
and treads together from underneath.
 Wood
Stair Treads made in this fashion require the use of more
expensive wood (because it is all thicker stock for both structural
and cosmetic appeal) and a more skilled tradesman for installation
due to the blind joinery needed. It is generally not a method
recommended for the weekend woodworker unless you are really
brave!
When building this type of stair treads, hardwood planks
can be any type of wood from ash to zebrawood, as long as
the thickness of the wood and your design matches the strength
characteristics of the hardwwood you have chosen .. this is
very important especially in situations where you wish to
eliminate the riser... see Hardwood
Stairs: Residential Building Code for issues related to
open risers.
As suggested earlier this method is most often used in new
home construction where highly mechanized manufacturers fabricate
the solid hardwood stairs offsite and deliver the stairway
treads as a unit dropped in place with the use of a crane.
Those that wish to take this on as a DIY project would be
best advised to hook up with a local finishing carpenter for
help, .... or as a last resort buy a few books :)
if you change your mind and would like to research
the "easier" method and purchase Hardwood
Recover Treads then take this link to our sister site,
or read further
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Stairs
