Let's riser and shine!

Custom stair parts are fun. They just take time. When you have a rib that designs stuff and you have to figure out how to make her designs work, you have to get creative. The problem at hand is the double ended bottom stair unit. It has to be custom built so that it fits a retro stairway and can take volutes at both sides. After several failures -- bending oak in a tight radius can be tricky -- I hit on the idea of using oak plywood for the riser, and kurfing it to allow for a smooth bend.

I began by setting up the Sawbuck. Removing the 8" blade and inserting a 7-1/4" blade raises it above the table, but a shim has to be used to get the right depth.

In this case, a slab of OSB was run through the planer to the correct thickness.

Then came the layout...

and the distance from the end of the workpiece to the beginning of the radius at the front of the step...

and we are ready to begin cutting.

This takes some patience, and care that chunks are not knocked out each time the blade slides back.

You can see that the thickness of the shim is critical to making sure you have just enough wood left to make a smooth bend and keep the piece from breaking.

There is no sense in making more cuts than you actually need...

and the result is quite flimsy, so be careful moving it.

Now to create the form for the riser. The end pieces will be part of the step; the rest is simply to be the place to rest Archimede's lever.

Here we go...

The kurfs are filled with subfloor adhesive. This will give a solid end, without voids.

Here is a close-up of the end. The excess glue will be trimmed off later, and so will the extra wood. When it has set, we remove the riser from the form, trim off the excess wood, and install the riser around the bottom of the rough framed stairway. (I should have taken more pix!) Then comes the problem of the tread.