Spiral Staircase Project

2012 ~ by Griz (aka Steve Stovner) ~
I started work on the apartment (north end of "Garaj Mahal") in 1998. We planned to live in the apartment and rent out the house & lower part of "Acres North". First up was to refurbish and install an old steel spiral staircase between ground floor kitchen/den/bath and upper floor bedroom & living room. After finishing the walls, bathroom, kitchen cabinets and was about to build the countertop, all work stopped when my father-in-law got sick. In 2012, after several false starts, I got back to working on the apartment as time permitted. It became apparent a steel structure in the kitchen was a stupid idea (takes up too much of the limited space and the knots on my head, had knots. It needed to move to the laundry area on the other side of the wall. What follows is photos and comments on that exercise.

2014 - Installed stair treads and tread extensions. Exterior curve of tread extension lines up with semi-circle cut in floor above (less 7/16" thickness of future hardboard wall).

2014 - Skinning the back of the spiral proved to be non-trivial. I cut the edge of a 2x4 at the approx. 45° tread-to-tread angle on the outside of the spiral, attached a thin strip of oak and used wedges to create desired twist back to almost vertical (the angle of the spiral inside). Filling in with lots of wedges and epoxy produced a strong mold half which I used to make it's complement.

5 wood strips, 1/4" thick, slathered with epoxy and clamped in the "mold" created the twisted pieces that were screwed to the back underside of each stair tread. 1/8" hardboard pieces were glued and screwed to the twisted "nailers". A glued & screwed second layer of hard board with offset joints produced a strong surface that followed the spiral very closely. Later the highs were ground off, thick epoxy was spread and a level straightedge was drawn, like a concrete screed, the full length of the back. It took 3 epoxy applications but the final result is very smooth and true to the spiral.

The side wall is 3 glued layers of 1/8" hardboard.

Interior is random width quarter sawn white oak "planks" glued one at a time directly to the hardboard. Each piece was held for glue set by the flexible press-board I made and many spring sticks. .

End grain of oak top decking was covered with a thin strip of oak.

Finished 2016 ~ by Griz (aka Steve Stovner) ~
The dark green corner trim is to protect my head from the sharp corner. It is a 3/4" PVC water pipe with 1/4 section removed.