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Spiral staircase tools and materials. |
| It was once said to me that these spiral stairs could be built using just sandpaper and a tree if you had the time. I don't mean that to be sarcastic, it's just that the more tools you have access too, the easier it is to build anything.
I have a modestly equipped small shop where I make spiral stairs as well as other projects. The real time saver tool wise is my surface planer, it's a 16 inch wide model that will surface a tread side in one pass. The landing is surfaced in narrow widths then edge glued after surfacing, then the joints are belt sanded. With careful gluing in the tread blanks I'm sure you could use a belt sander to surface the treads and other parts. A table saw is perhaps the most useful tool though, but again if you're just cutting wood, a circular saw would also do the job. Making the boards straight enough to glue edge to edge is most easily accomplished with a jointer, but again, other tools can make an edge straight. The price of wood in your area, different than here I'm sure, is also a figure it would be meaningless for me to quote. The steel pipe and fittings around here is just about $220 for enough to do the stairs. When I build a spiral here its cost in materials usually runs about $500+. To help you determine a price for wood in a project in your area, the treads consume about 80 board feet of 8 quarter stock. That's finished, not before cutting and allowing for waste. The balusters, one per tread, would use about 24 board feet. The hand rail about 4 board feet. I also buy unsurfaced boards to help reduce the costs. I hope this is of some help. |
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