From slab to fab

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Bas

Recovering tool addict
Bas
Corporate Member
Chris, a friend of mine is redoing his stairs. After installing a few Oak treads from Lowe's, he decided he didn't like them very much, especially not at that price. So he asked if I could help him fabricate some. First "external" project, whoohoo! :wsmile:

Jeff was going to get me some 5/4 lumber a couple of wood runs ago, but he accidentally brought 4/4. Which turned out to be a blessing in disguise! After learning I wanted to make treads, he offered up some BIG, MASSIVE Oak slabs. I had planned to just glue up boards to get the right width, but I couldn't pass this one up.

These boards were 10' long, 2' wide, with a thickness varying from 5/4 to 6/4. Big boys. Good thing Scott (NCScroller) was around with his truck. Here are a couple of pictures of the rough material:


The first thing I did was trim them down by cutting some of the sapwood and bark off the sides. Anything to get them more manageable. I also figured it would help with acclimating. Hot and dusty work!


After a few weeks of acclimating in the shop, it was time to turn lumber into stair treads. Now, my shop is pretty small. With all the stuff I have in there, handling a 4x4 sheet of plywood is a challenge, let alone 10' slabs. Even after I cut the boards to rough length using a circular saw, it was still tight.

First step was ripping the sides parallel. Cutting the bark and sapwood had left the boards extremely wavy, so jointing was not an option. I attached each board to a piece of MDF (letting the crooked edge hang over the MDF edge a bit) with some hot melt glue, and ripped one edge straight. Then popped off the board and ripped the other side. With boards this size, a helper is handy (still gotta build that outfeed table...).

(BTW, my little saw ripped through the 6/4 oak like it was hot butter! It's all about the blade... :saw:)

Since my jointer can't handle anything wider than 6", I used a planer sled. It's nothing more than a bunch of laminated sheets of MDF, and a stop. I shimmed each board with playing cards to make sure it wouldn't rock, then attached it with more hot melt glue. A few passes through the planer and one side was flat. Well, quite a few passes actually. You can only take off a VERY small amount with 12" wide boards! After that, pop off the board, and plane the other side parallel. Again, a helper is invaluable, that planer sled is HEAVY. And with an oak slab on top, it's HEAVIER.


After getting everything straight and flat, I let the boards acclimate further, and brought it down to 1" in stages. I did not want any warping at this point!


The next step was putting a bullnose on the boards. I set up my little router table, even added an auxiliary fence, but it wasn't working. The board was simply too wide for such a small table, it kept shifting. So instead I set up a jig on my workbench. The extra rail provided solid support for the router.



And yes, occasionally, I do have sawdust on the floor! Actually, this was after the first board, the place looked like a disaster area after the last one, dust EVERYWHERE. A router table would have done a better job managing the dust...yet another reason to build one. But the finished treads look great, a little sanding and they'll be ready for installation. I plan to do the final trimming on-site.



Working with slabs is not easy. You waste a lot of wood getting it flat and straight, but the result is very pretty. And you don't have to worry about matching the grain :)

The whole ripping and planing process took an entire afternoon. With larger equipment, it probably would have taken an hour. But, this is a hobby...no rush. The same goes for the routing, with a decent table I could have put the bullnoses on in no time. But it was cool figuring out how to build a jig for this. Certainly very satisfying, tackling large projects with small tools. I feel sorry for Travis, he'll never be able to appreciate this. :nah:

Woodworking is typically a lonely business, it was a lot of fun working on this together with my buddy Chris. Also a lot safer. :icon_thum
 

Kalai

New User
Chris Kalai Allen
Hay Bas, nice slabs,,, nice shop,,, even nicer story!! I don't think my shop is big enough to have slabs like that in there, I am planning on rebuilding by shop so I will have more room, maybe then I can use my tablesaw for things other than cutting out pen blanks :) Aloha.

Kalai
 

JackLeg

New User
Reggie
Nice job on the slabs, and an even nicer narrative! I KNEW you are multi-talented! Next thing we know, Nahm will be looking for a new home, and it'll be the "Dutch Boy" show. (And I don't mean paint!) :wsmile:

Seriously, great job of bringing them from raw to ready.

:eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap
 

skysharks

New User
John Macmaster
Good job Bas-man.
It was a good read.
I can relate to the time spent on planing and jointing. About 75% of what I make in my shop goes thru that process.
It is very, very rarely that I buy any finished lumber.
But man does it give you a nice satisfaction that you did it.:eusa_danc:eusa_danc
But sometimes when you try to explain it to some folks it gets lost on them.

Once again great job:eusa_danc:icon_thum
 

TracyP

Administrator , Forum Moderator
Tracy
Great looking stair treads and awesome narrative with pics. Is this recent run of long narratives becoming your internet resume'?:rotflm:
 

RandyJ

New User
Randy
Nice job, Bas! Looks like you know what you're doing. How did you get ol' Darth to help out in the shop?:dontknow:
 

CaptnA

Andy
Corporate Member
well done!
And well explained. Anything is possible if enough planning and patience goes into it.
I've heard too often people won't do something because they don't have equipment large enough. Looks like you managed just fine without "industrial" equipment!
 

Glennbear

Moderator
Glenn
Nicely done Bas, " The whole ripping and planing process took an entire afternoon" . Only an afternoon ! :eek: That looks like days of work for me. :no: With all of jigs and setups I think you can add millwright to your talent listing or at least Joe Scharle has competition for title of resident jigmeister :gar-La;
 
Very nice work Bas. I build everything from rough cut lumber. My neighbor helped me with the cradle we built for his daughter's baby. He was amazed that we spent the entire first day preparing the lumber. He especially liked emptying the dust collector several times. I just added a trash can seperator that will make it easier to get from rough to finished lumber.

I love the smell of planer dust. Oak, walnut, cherry - mmmm. If you start with finished lumber you miss the smell and the excitement of the first pass on the planer when you can actually see the face grain.

My favorite part of building my house was the open, floating stair project to the 2nd story. Our stair treads are finished 1 1/8" thick QS white oak.
 

WoodWrangler

New User
Jeremy
Is that Darth helping you? :gar-La;
stair_treads_planing.JPG
 

Bas

Recovering tool addict
Bas
Corporate Member
This reads like a documentary. What's gotten into you? ;-)

Great looking stair treads and awesome narrative with pics. Is this recent run of long narratives becoming your internet resume'?
Just trying out different writing styles. At work, everything is a PowerPoint presentation, and I noticed I started to think & write everything in bullet-point style :eek:. So this is a nice way to stop going insane (well, insaner at least)
 

Bas

Recovering tool addict
Bas
Corporate Member
How did you get ol' Darth to help out in the shop?:dontknow:

Is that Darth helping you? :gar-La;
Darth is pretty useful in the shop. He keeps the dust off the well pump, and whenever I drop a large board, he does the Force thing and catches it before it hits the ground. He also does the Jedi mind trick on my wife when I need to buy new tools! :tool:

Plus, by keeping him busy, I avoid being seduced by the Dark Side of wood turning
721_darth_vader_fighting_luke_skywalker.gif
 

sapwood

New User
Roger
Bas, your time in NC is paying off. Now you can add "get 'er done" to [strike]cheap[/strike] frugal. :icon_thum

Travis, thanks for pointing out the change in style to narrative. I hadn't noticed and I like it. Just hope Bas didn't leave out any steps :swoon:

Roger
 

sawduster

New User
Robert
It is fascinating to see how these things are done
Good job and excellent ( as always ) WIP presentation :icon_thum:icon_thum
 
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