Stairs

Concrete stairs,  random sizes in the rise and the going and all the steps out of level, quite a challenge, and they were not deep enough which was good it left  space for the nosing.

We bought Welsh Oak and left it in the house for 6 weeks, and yes it did work a lot it crooked, cupped, bowed, twisted, it shrank all of that, I left it thick enough to plane it square and straight,  measured all the different rises made a drawing of the stairs numbered the steps, than I sat down one evening to calculate what the rise was going to be, 18 cm that was it,  every step got it’s own size pieces of wood (spacers) under it, to make the right rise and also level it with extra plastic spacers. I didn’t want to use screws in this beautiful wood so I glued the steps on the pieces of wood which I screwed in the concrete, I took  tests with different glues before I started on the stairs, the test pieces are still glued on my workshop floor can’t get them of even though I tried it with crowbar and big hammer, well it’s good to know.

Solid steps no cracking sound when you walk over it

I sanded the wood to 180 grit and treated it with Tung oil, diluted with white spirit 30-60%, 50-50%, a third coat will go on with maybe 80% Tung oil, Tung oil is very thick.

The steps are not slippery at all but smooth, it’s fine to walk them with your socks on

The going or ‘run’ is 22 cm, that is the depth of the steps