stair planks?

[jcz]

Guys I have not been very active here as of late. Life in general has gotten ahold of all my shop time. I have not had much of a chance to do anything wood related in a few months. I have checked in here from time to time to drool over some of the beautiful pieces you guys are working on.

A big reason I have been out of the shop is my wife and I bought some land and are having our house built. Our contractor is a great guy and knows his stuff. I have no complaints with the job he is doing so far. My wife told him last week that I wanted to add a little of my wood working to the house as it is being built. I have been dreaming of all these different ideas but but they are too far fetched for me to complete in the time frame. I think I have narrowed it down to building the desktop and having the cabinet guys build the rest. I also am thinking about building the stair planks. I know I can handle the desktop. That should be no problem. I have some very nice walnut I plan to use for this. I also want to use walnut for the stairs but dont think I have enough for both projects. We are planning on a carpet runner down the middle of the steps so I was thinking I could use walnut on the visible ends and pine in the center.

Does any one have experience with making their own planks for stairs? Does this even seem like a good idea to try? I'm not sold on doing this just yet. Any guidance would be appreciated.

 

[Bas]

I've made stair treads, out of red oak. I got some wide "diving boards" which eliminated the need for edge gluing boards to get to the requisite 12" width. It's nice when you have one solid plank with continuous grain. It's a lot of work, but it's not difficult to do if you have the right equipment. Keep in mind that you need some thick stock (at least 5/4) to get to the 1" final thickness.

I would not put walnut just on the ends. Even though you won't have any expansion/ contraction issues, you're still introducing seams and different species. Plus, it'll be more work to cut and fit all the pieces. And if someone ever removes the carpet runner, they'll think: "What hack put THAT in place?", because it'll look terrible. You'd be better off using all pine and then staining the wood to look like walnut.

In terms of cost, walnut isn't exactly the cheapest wood to use. I know you have it on hand, but walnut is great for furniture. You may be better off trading your surplus for some nice white oak, and built the treads out of that.

 

[SubGuy]

I've made stair treads, out of red oak. I got some wide "diving boards" which eliminated the need for edge gluing boards to get to the requisite 12" width. It's nice when you have one solid plank with continuous grain. It's a lot of work, but it's not difficult to do if you have the right equipment. Keep in mind that you need some thick stock (at least 5/4) to get to the 1" final thickness.

I would not put walnut just on the ends. Even though you won't have any expansion/ contraction issues, you're still introducing seams and different species. Plus, it'll be more work to cut and fit all the pieces. And if someone ever removes the carpet runner, they'll think: "What hack put THAT in place?", because it'll look terrible. You'd be better off using all pine and then staining the wood to look like walnut.

In terms of cost, walnut isn't exactly the cheapest wood to use. I know you have it on hand, but walnut is great for furniture. You may be better off trading your surplus for some nice white oak, and built the treads out of that.

Definitely do no use pieces around the runners. I've seen it in a remodel and it had just been done about a year prior. The pieces were separating and causing issues with sound as you walked up the steps. If you don't use whole size pieces and you do join them, I highly recommend using a "finger joint" or a "tongue and grove". A glue line rip will not hold up to the stresses that a stair tread takes. As for the Walnut, if you have it and want to use it there and it's 5/4, I say go for it. It's up there in hardness with WO and RO. I love Walnut so you won't hear any objections whenever anyone uses that for pretty much anything.

 

[jcz]

Thank you, that is just the info I was looking for. I saw your post on making the treads after starting this post. You did a magnificant job on those. Well I just went out to the shop to start on my ideas and I figured out the wood I have is plenty thick to get 1'' treads but it is not wide enough. The builder said it needed to be 11'' deep and my stuff is just over 10''. So I guess that idea is out.

On to the desktop. Maybe now I will do a nice wood inlay or something fancy. MY wife keeps showing me these pics she is finding on the internet of houses that are way, WAY out of our budget. It has my head spinning trying to figure out if I could do that.......