How deep is the mortise for housed stringer stairs typically cut. I have a jig all mamde to do the routeing, just not sure how deep to go. The stringer stock is 1 1/4″ thick, treads will be 1 1/4 also and risers will be 1″ – 1 1/4 ” depending on how well all the stock mills out.
Entire stair is white pine. Longest stringer is about 7’6″. This will be a u shaped stair with a landing in the middle.
Edited 5/7/2007 10:53 pm ET by TomW
Replies
I'd go 1/2" deep. Probably get away with 3/8", but you have the extra beef, why not use it?
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
Thanks for the input everyone. This is my first attempt at a housed stringer stair. I got the stringer material gled up and milled to thickness this morning and got all eigth stringers mprtised. Started milling treads and risers this evening.
Here's my homemade mortise jig. I can't find one commercially available but this works just fine anyway. I bolted a board to the bottom to get the rise run set and the stop block to register off the last mortise cut so the spacing stays the same. I just swap everything to the other side of he jig to rout the mating stringer.
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Here are the routed stringers. they are all cut longer than necessary. There are two different sizes since the basement set needed an additional 3 1/2" of rise. Jig was easy to rese for that. I'll probably cut them to size on site (in NH) in June. Looking forward to seeing how the installation goes.
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The driveway art is cotesy of my kids. I can't take credit for that.
Tom: Very nice. One thing I like about housed stringers is that you can show the customer how a straight edge can just glide down over the tread nosings showing practically no error at all. I have never been able to do that site building a stair the step at a time method.
Keep up the good work and keep posting.
One more thought.....if you pocket screw your risers to your treads....and pocket screw your tread returns on with a swoop miter....then you have got it down.
Stan
Thanks Stan. I plan to pocket screw the treads and risers but ther won't be any tread returns on this one, at least that's the current plan. It may be diferent next month.
Lookin' good brotha!
Just for curiosities sake.....what depth of mortise did you end up with?
J. D. ReynoldsHome Improvements
1/2" depth
Off topic, but a guy I know routs his housings all with a low-angle dovetail bit, maybe something like seven degrees, to undercut them, so that the joints come sharp and tight.
The dovetail bit isn't used for the hogging out, just the finish.
It doesn't affect the effectiveness of the wedges.
Typically, dadoes are cut in one third the thickness of the material.
Beat it to fit / Paint it to match