Fantastic video with useful detials. Thanks for doing it. I”m planning my conversion from About to carpet stairs to white oak as I type. Your treads and skirts look pre finished. Were they? I don’t have access to the backside of my fights, so can I use PL premium done properly as you advise with back-bevels and face nail using 23g pins? Such tiny holes can be filled in a variety of ways to disappear from a standing height. In your trade is the importance of the nail to the long term hold of he treads and risers debated or is it accepted that the glue is doing all the work and nail is only there to hold things in place till the PL sets? Please tell me your opinion in the context of doing it on your own house, not whether commercial practices would frown on it when working for others. In the real world most carpenters don’t sweat nail holes when most treads are unfinished. I was encouraged by your answer to another guy who asked about skipping the nails on a piece of 3” nosing. If you advise against 23g pins do the nail-hole filler sticks you mentioned in another answer blend in with 15g nails in terms of sheen if one has-pre finished treads? I want to pre-finish my treads.
Nice job. I liked the way you oriented the plywood skirt extension to match the grain of the dimensional 1x10 skirt. My only criticism is you didn’t bullnose the left (exposed) edge of the treads over the plywood skirt extension. Otherwise, well done!! Remember, horizontally it’s LEVEL. Vertically, it’s PLUMB.
Ya those should be overhung. Also made from 6/4 or 8/4 wood and chamfered for a 1-1/2" overhang. I'm installing treds like this right now with venetian tile risers. I think it's going to look more beautiful than the solid black granite one I did for Ambercrombie and Fitch in Portland, OR.
Very nice and detailed video. The question I have though is what if you don't have access to the underside of the staircase? I'm starting a project where I have construction grade risers and treads.. (Covered by carpet). I've removed the carpet, padding, strip boards and staples, cut the tread noses back to the risers and will lay the new risers and treads on top. I was thinking I'd go risers on top of treads to help lock the treads in place, along with glue and nails holding the treads down, as opposed to risers in back of the treads, but I'm not sure if that's the right path. Your thoughts would be appreciated. New treads will be maple with 5" X 3/4 maple flooring on the two landings.
Thank you! First off I would not recommend going over the old, a lot of times it is easier to install new treads and risers on the existing stringers, especially if this will cause an irregular height for your first and last step. If you do move forward with aforementioned method, screw the heck out of the old stairs to try minimize squeaks, and make sure you use plenty of adhesive to the back of the risers. Remember every edge of every board that you install on a staircase whether it be a tread or a riser should have construction adhesive or silicone on it to mitigate squeaks. Use a 16 ga. trim nailer and face nail the risers and use a color matched wax crayon to fill in your nail holes. Hopefully this provides clarity, Thanks!
In watching this if you skirt angle is 31.5 then your plumb cut is 58.5 at both ends ? It’s your supplemental angle ? 90-31.5=58.5 ? That way you’re not dragging it back and forth? Quite honestly I don’t see how u can work efficiently w/o a tool belt & I am speaking from exp doing the same work !
Solid run through, looks great. I'm just a big fan of returning the treads so these look 90% there in my eyes. I'm also curious about the railings. Are they retrofitted to the left side of the stringer and ran into the wall?
Ya I think treds should be made from 8/4 wood, not 4/4, at least 6/4. Then chamfered for a 1-1 1/2" overhang. Looks really good and lasts really long. As far as the railing. I too am uncertain what your talking about. But I think your asking if he attached a post to the outside of the plywood section at the bottom and then ran it up to the wall? To that I say I would do it standard. I would bolt the post to the 1st step using a double ended lag bolt and run the railing up the wall. I would put 2 pickets per step in the open area to prevent children from having accidents and keeping in accordance with code where applicable.
We are finishing a staircase which is closed in below the stringers, so we don't have access to fasten the bottom of the risers to the back of the treads, and we can't fasten the treads to the stringer framing from below either. Is it a bad idea to pre-attach the risers to the back of the treads, and install the combination riser/tread in one step? I assume it will work if we do a good job test fitting. Any suggestions?
Yes correct, in that case it’ll work fine. Just make sure you don’t have it too high. We usually make out 1/16-1/8 shy because scotia molding covers the bottom of the tread to riser. Generally us just glue ours in that case. Lots of f-26. When we can we go in from the top of the tread above and 2” 16g nail it across the back. Usually there is room.
On my current job, the back side of the 3" bullnose piece at the landing is grooved to engage the tongue of the last piece of the landing's engineered flooring. If the fit between tongue and groove is good and we use plenty of PL, do you think face nails would still be necessary?
No we don’t think so in that case - the reason we used them was because they didn’t lock together so we had to use nails to press the nosing to the height of the flooring.
I see you use nails very sparingly and I would like to do the same. Can you advise minimum pressure settings on your compressor? I have a PC pancake compressor with a small tank. I have run into situations where I run low on pressure before the unit cycles back on and that leaves me with nails that are not fully driven and a PIA to remove. Any guidance is greatly appreciated. Video very well done. Thanks.
Tips for fellow pros. You can glue down treads with wood flooring glue. Some even offer sound isolation. Then secure if needed with a couple nails from a grex 23ga headed pin nailer. As far as I'm aware, only grex is shooting or making 23ga headed pin nails. Most are headless which I find pointless by comparison. This leaves the tiniest little holes. The nails are even stainless steel and quite strong. Though do like to break if pulled. So get your pressures dialed in on the compressor. If you have a fail. Use a flush cut nipper and the tiniest punch you can find, maybe even a drill bit. Also, I like to keep all my steps the same within 1/32" variance across all steps, shimming as required. This makes steps as safe as they can get. Without using commercial tactics and putting a high contrast strip on the step edge. Stairs engage humans motorfunctionality and the first step gets repeated by the brain for every other step. If you stumble on stairs it might be the stairs fault... Most of the stairs I work on there isn't access underneath the stairs and have a plywood subfloor. So cannot be screwed from underneath. Often the underneath of stairs are turned into storage areas and get fully closed in drywall and or cabinetry. For the skirt I just make a template. Takes 5-10 minutes and guarantees perfection. I template it the same way a countertop guy would template a countertop. Also, if your not doing it all in the same wood. It's good to make the tred from 6/4 or 8/4 wood and chamfer it for the overhanging portion so it covers the riser for a cleaner look. You can also buy treds pre-made in this fashion. As far as code is concerned, I go by California because that's where I exist. It's 10" minimum on the run/tred, 4-7.5" on the riser, and 30" minimum width between handrails (for a home) 36" wide minimum for commercial. With a 3/8" variance on both rise and run across all steps. Right now I'm installing a staircase with venetian tile risers and solid wood treds made to match a hardwood we had imported from Europe.
You do good work. Wondering why the left side of the first few treads don't have returns on them. I've never seen exposed stair ends just have a square cut on them. Did the customer request that?
So I noticed you didn’t use Scotia molding or base cap on the top of the skirts or under the treads. Are you using 1x6 as base and that’s why or did they prefer not to have it generally? I know it isn’t mandatory to use them but here in the sound 90% of our new construction they use both.
@@jrsbuild hope mine turns out as nice I've never done stairs before and going to try it in my house. Got some 1x12 Birdseye boards for treads. As for the skirt boards going to just use 1x10 maple boards since I'm going to white wash the rest of the house's maple trim.
Awesome video so informative, I've built several houses and renovated even more but never tackled the stairs myself, I am now confident I can do it. Your stair riser and treads are maple what did you use for the skirt?
Excellent work and really well explained!
Thanks for watching!
Fantastic video with useful detials. Thanks for doing it. I”m planning my conversion from About to carpet stairs to white oak as I type. Your treads and skirts look pre finished. Were they? I don’t have access to the backside of my fights, so can I use PL premium done properly as you advise with back-bevels and face nail using 23g pins? Such tiny holes can be filled in a variety of ways to disappear from a standing height.
In your trade is the importance of the nail to the long term hold of he treads and risers debated or is it accepted that the glue is doing all the work and nail is only there to hold things in place till the PL sets?
Please tell me your opinion in the context of doing it on your own house, not whether commercial practices would frown on it when working for others. In the real world most carpenters don’t sweat nail holes when most treads are unfinished. I was encouraged by your answer to another guy who asked about skipping the nails on a piece of 3” nosing.
If you advise against 23g pins do the nail-hole filler sticks you mentioned in another answer blend in with 15g nails in terms of sheen if one has-pre finished treads? I want to pre-finish my treads.
Good lesson man, thanks
Glad you liked it!
Nice job. I liked the way you oriented the plywood skirt extension to match the grain of the dimensional 1x10 skirt. My only criticism is you didn’t bullnose the left (exposed) edge of the treads over the plywood skirt extension. Otherwise, well done!! Remember, horizontally it’s LEVEL. Vertically, it’s PLUMB.
Ya those should be overhung. Also made from 6/4 or 8/4 wood and chamfered for a 1-1/2" overhang. I'm installing treds like this right now with venetian tile risers.
I think it's going to look more beautiful than the solid black granite one I did for Ambercrombie and Fitch in Portland, OR.
So you would use PL over sub floor adhesive on the treads? This was very helpful I learned a few new tricks.
Glad it helped!
F-26 is what we use.
How do you do return nosing? probably the hardest part
Very nice and detailed video. The question I have though is what if you don't have access to the underside of the staircase? I'm starting a project where I have construction grade risers and treads.. (Covered by carpet). I've removed the carpet, padding, strip boards and staples, cut the tread noses back to the risers and will lay the new risers and treads on top.
I was thinking I'd go risers on top of treads to help lock the treads in place, along with glue and nails holding the treads down, as opposed to risers in back of the treads, but I'm not sure if that's the right path. Your thoughts would be appreciated.
New treads will be maple with 5" X 3/4 maple flooring on the two landings.
Thank you! First off I would not recommend going over the old, a lot of times it is easier to install new treads and risers on the existing stringers, especially if this will cause an irregular height for your first and last step. If you do move forward with aforementioned method, screw the heck out of the old stairs to try minimize squeaks, and make sure you use plenty of adhesive to the back of the risers. Remember every edge of every board that you install on a staircase whether it be a tread or a riser should have construction adhesive or silicone on it to mitigate squeaks. Use a 16 ga. trim nailer and face nail the risers and use a color matched wax crayon to fill in your nail holes. Hopefully this provides clarity, Thanks!
Very nice , I guess I can’t use my skill saw with a track guide because the bevel only goes backwards, if you follow me
In watching this if you skirt angle is 31.5 then your plumb cut is 58.5 at both ends ? It’s your supplemental angle ? 90-31.5=58.5 ? That way you’re not dragging it back and forth? Quite honestly I don’t see how u can work efficiently w/o a tool belt & I am speaking from exp doing the same work !
Nice work and excellent informative Video!
Solid run through, looks great. I'm just a big fan of returning the treads so these look 90% there in my eyes. I'm also curious about the railings. Are they retrofitted to the left side of the stringer and ran into the wall?
Hey thank you! Not sure we understand exactly what your asking but there was no retro-fitting as it was a new build. 🙌
Ya I think treds should be made from 8/4 wood, not 4/4, at least 6/4. Then chamfered for a 1-1 1/2" overhang. Looks really good and lasts really long.
As far as the railing. I too am uncertain what your talking about. But I think your asking if he attached a post to the outside of the plywood section at the bottom and then ran it up to the wall?
To that I say I would do it standard. I would bolt the post to the 1st step using a double ended lag bolt and run the railing up the wall. I would put 2 pickets per step in the open area to prevent children from having accidents and keeping in accordance with code where applicable.
If I don’t have access to the back of the stairs, where would you nail/screw the risers and treads?
Hi Matt. Thanks for the helpful video. You're not in the DC area by chance? Looking for a good staircase carpenter for a retrofit. Thanks,
Josh
Inclinometer + 4’ level = economy option
Excellent work Bro
Thank you so much 😀
We are finishing a staircase which is closed in below the stringers, so we don't have access to fasten the bottom of the risers to the back of the treads, and we can't fasten the treads to the stringer framing from below either. Is it a bad idea to pre-attach the risers to the back of the treads, and install the combination riser/tread in one step? I assume it will work if we do a good job test fitting. Any suggestions?
Sure! It's not a bad idea. Glue is your friend. = )
Yes correct, in that case it’ll work fine. Just make sure you don’t have it too high. We usually make out 1/16-1/8 shy because scotia molding covers the bottom of the tread to riser. Generally us just glue ours in that case. Lots of f-26. When we can we go in from the top of the tread above and 2” 16g nail it across the back. Usually there is room.
On my current job, the back side of the 3" bullnose piece at the landing is grooved to engage the tongue of the last piece of the landing's engineered flooring. If the fit between tongue and groove is good and we use plenty of PL, do you think face nails would still be necessary?
No we don’t think so in that case - the reason we used them was because they didn’t lock together so we had to use nails to press the nosing to the height of the flooring.
I see you use nails very sparingly and I would like to do the same. Can you advise minimum pressure settings on your compressor? I have a PC pancake compressor with a small tank. I have run into situations where I run low on pressure before the unit cycles back on and that leaves me with nails that are not fully driven and a PIA to remove. Any guidance is greatly appreciated. Video very well done. Thanks.
Informative video. You showed some subtle details that I needed
Tips for fellow pros.
You can glue down treads with wood flooring glue. Some even offer sound isolation. Then secure if needed with a couple nails from a grex 23ga headed pin nailer. As far as I'm aware, only grex is shooting or making 23ga headed pin nails. Most are headless which I find pointless by comparison. This leaves the tiniest little holes. The nails are even stainless steel and quite strong. Though do like to break if pulled. So get your pressures dialed in on the compressor. If you have a fail. Use a flush cut nipper and the tiniest punch you can find, maybe even a drill bit.
Also, I like to keep all my steps the same within 1/32" variance across all steps, shimming as required. This makes steps as safe as they can get. Without using commercial tactics and putting a high contrast strip on the step edge. Stairs engage humans motorfunctionality and the first step gets repeated by the brain for every other step. If you stumble on stairs it might be the stairs fault...
Most of the stairs I work on there isn't access underneath the stairs and have a plywood subfloor. So cannot be screwed from underneath. Often the underneath of stairs are turned into storage areas and get fully closed in drywall and or cabinetry.
For the skirt I just make a template. Takes 5-10 minutes and guarantees perfection. I template it the same way a countertop guy would template a countertop.
Also, if your not doing it all in the same wood. It's good to make the tred from 6/4 or 8/4 wood and chamfer it for the overhanging portion so it covers the riser for a cleaner look. You can also buy treds pre-made in this fashion.
As far as code is concerned, I go by California because that's where I exist. It's 10" minimum on the run/tred, 4-7.5" on the riser, and 30" minimum width between handrails (for a home) 36" wide minimum for commercial. With a 3/8" variance on both rise and run across all steps.
Right now I'm installing a staircase with venetian tile risers and solid wood treds made to match a hardwood we had imported from Europe.
You do good work. Wondering why the left side of the first few treads don't have returns on them. I've never seen exposed stair ends just have a square cut on them. Did the customer request that?
Thanks for the video, I have a question. What type of rail guide did you use to cut the miter on the skirt board?
Great Job! How much does "Thing" charge per day to help out?
So I noticed you didn’t use Scotia molding or base cap on the top of the skirts or under the treads. Are you using 1x6 as base and that’s why or did they prefer not to have it generally? I know it isn’t mandatory to use them but here in the sound 90% of our new construction they use both.
Great video,well presented and the template for layout was great, thanks for sharing.
Glad you enjoyed it, thanks!
Thanks for all the detail Matt, Great Work... Can we get a cost for that maple ?
Complimenti, serietà e professionalità… molto intéressante seguirti… ciao dall’Italia
Looks super good man!
Thank you kindly!
@@jrsbuild hope mine turns out as nice I've never done stairs before and going to try it in my house. Got some 1x12 Birdseye boards for treads. As for the skirt boards going to just use 1x10 maple boards since I'm going to white wash the rest of the house's maple trim.
@@Mostviews111 Good for you for going for it -- take some pics!
Awesome video so informative, I've built several houses and renovated even more but never tackled the stairs myself, I am now confident I can do it. Your stair riser and treads are maple what did you use for the skirt?
Thank you and so glad to hear that! We used maple for the skirts as well. Best of luck! 🙌
Nice video, did you make the treads or buy them to get the rounded nosing.
Yes we buy most of our treads with the rounded nosing. Thanks for watching!
Rip all that shit out and build a proper stair using housed stringers... Way faster and much better results...
Thanks for the feedback Mark! We have found that there is a time and a place for housed stringers. However we are always willing to learn and grow🙌
Nice
nice work...
Thanks Kurt! Just finished up the home. Video to come!
Good details.
Thank you!
How to get your angle without a digital level
sliding T-Bevel
Can I do stair tread first than I can put riser
it doesn't work, its a scam