Stairwell Finished

[gitano]

I think I mentioned somewhere here at THL that I have been occupied with finishing the carpentry (banisters, cladding treads, and molding), on the stairwell in my house that goes from the main floor up to the second floor. It's finally finished including the 'chemical' finish. (In this case, shellac.) I didn't take any "before" pictures because there are plenty of those as ancillary to other subjects, but at the moment of course I can't find any. However, I did take some pictures before I got too far along.

This is fitting the solid 5"x5" newel to the stringer coming down from the upper floor to the landing. In the following pictures, you can see the unfinished stringer, treads, and landing.




These are the lower newels on the main floor. I custom fabricated those plinths.






I was working in situ, but I really needed to minimize the sawdust being blown/tracked everywhere in the house. Therefore all of the power cutting was done in my shop, and then the pieces brought back into the house for final fitting or back to the shop for more cutting.

One usually has to be creative with clamping for finish carpentry. I don't nail/brad anything unless I absolutely have no choice. Here are some pictures of the 'creative' clamping required on this project.




In the following picture you can see the shaping that had to be done to the ends of the "clamp" boards to match the quarter-round molding they were clamping.


Here's a picture after the first banister was up. There was some swearing involved. You can see the unfinished stringers, treads, and landing in some of the pictures.








The other side and part of the upper flight's banister.


Now I'm starting to finish the stringers and fit the finish pieces around the handrails, stringers, newels, spindles, and treads. it had to look like it "grew there".
















Next was cladding the treads. The "hardwood" flooring throughout the house is bamboo, so the stairs needed to match. I had to custom make the bullnose/stairnose at the tread's 'nose'. One of the things I 'liked' about the unfinished treads was that they were not "slippery'. As soon as I put the chemical finish on these treads, they would become very slippery. Therefore, I cut flutes in the bullnoses to provide some traction. It was an 'experiment', and required very precise work a the power mill, but I am very pleased with the result. It "worked".

In the following pictures, you can see the grooves cut in the bullnose if you look closely, and you can see clad and unclad treads.






In this picture you can see the covered front face of the 3"-thick threads as well as the "open" design of the stairs.


Then the 'chemical' finishing started. As I said, I used shellac that I made from flake. I used "blonde" and "garnet". This is what the garnet looks like in the jar:


And now it's "finished" and finished:












Now back to the second Morris chair.

Paul

[drinksgin (deceased)]

I bet I know who is really happy to have her house back!!!!!!!!!!!
Dust mop is really wondering just how the h*** he is going to get his little legs up those stairs!

:cens:

[gitano]

You'd be surprised what he can get up on. The stairs are no problem!

Paul

[22hornet]

Wow that is a lot of hours that have gone into that work Paul. Fantastic work too. Real pride in doing the job well.
 
 Love the photo of the makeshift clamping. Welcome to my world.

[gitano]

Thanks, 22Hornet!

Paul

[sakorick]

Sensational......just perfect!:biggthumpup:

[j0e_bl0ggs (deceased)]

Well.....what can I say?

'part from the time faffing around (yeah I know bang-bangs get in the way), super job there.

[Jorge in Oz]

Awesome job Paul.

[gitano]

Thanks for the compliments, fellas.

Paul

[Paul Hoskins]

Paul, that's absolutely beautiful. I'm glad we got it finished. Standing there looking down the stairs makes me  dizzy tho. Just wondering what you've been doing in your spare time lately. .....Paul H

[gitano]

Thanks, Paul.

I have a very busy time ahead. Lots of unfinished projects, and new ones as well: Guns, house, furniture, boat. Fortunately, the ones on the house are minor compared to the stairwell.

Paul

[apeters24]

Beautiful!!  

Great work!!