The jagged cut edge is of a plywood jig used to build the stairs in an upside down and backwards configuration, basically you build them lying down and then flip them over to put them in place. In order to get perfect alignment, we needed to fit the lovely black cherry treads to the pine stringers a few times. The treads are set into the jig, which is cut based on the dimensions of the place it is to be installed. They are then drilled and trimmed in various stages with and without the stringers laid on top of them. I had expected Ronn to bring the stringers, but he did not, so we found two nice white pine and harvested them for the stringers. We used Ronn and Dan's peeling blades, and this went quickly but the pine is very sticky with pine sap. The hardwood black cherry stringers are seasoned with four years of air drying, but for these structural members, Ronn normally uses green logs such as the pine ones that we cut. This was an adventure as we felled them along the edge of our property and used the tractor to drag them across the 557 highway on to River Road to load them on the trailer......
We needed a few more spindles, so here I am using Ronn's draw blade instead of my little scraper. It is faster but not as smooth a job. I am very fond of his clamping vice, pictured here holding the spindle for me.
Elaine took this picture of (clockwise from the left) - Ronn, Bob, me, Frank and Dan working on the treads. They are bored and countersunk for bolting using a novel fastening technique. There are short pieces of 3 inch diameter muffler pipe used at each of the two bolting spots on the treads. This acts as a strengthening bushing to seat the stringer-to-tread connection. Inside this, the hole all the way through the stringer and tread is made for the 7/16 inch threaded rod bolting.
