Well I made a set of oak stairs, and for a story that is too long to tell,
as the last step, I want to put on the stair skirts. They will be cut from
a 3/4" oak slab, and go on top of the treads / risers. I know this is going
to be challenging.

That oak slab that costs a good $50, so I want to cut and measure this
right. I have a method to transfer the riser and tread layout to the slab,
including the bullnose radius on the tread with a high degree of accuracy.
Now I need to cut this out, and I would like to maintain tolerances better
than 1/16" so that this meets up to the treads and risers with only little
visible gap.

How do I do this?

I'll use my chopsaw with laser guide to cut the straight lines, but what
about the bullnose radius, which is about 3/4" radius? I am thinking of
either a router or a very small jigsaw. Seems the router would be able to
navigate the tight radius easier, but one major slip, and there goes $50.
Cutting a jig for the router is another option, but a lot of work. Any
suggestions on the right jigsaw blade / setup to turn that tight radius with
very precise results?

Thx,
Tman

On Thu, 6 Oct 2005 20:48:17 -0400, "Tman" tman9_ at _comcast.net
(remove underscores) wrote:

Well I made a set of oak stairs, and for a story that is too long to tell,
as the last step, I want to put on the stair skirts. They will be cut from
a 3/4" oak slab, and go on top of the treads / risers. I know this is going
to be challenging.

That oak slab that costs a good $50, so I want to cut and measure this
right. I have a method to transfer the riser and tread layout to the slab,
including the bullnose radius on the tread with a high degree of accuracy.
Now I need to cut this out, and I would like to maintain tolerances better
than 1/16" so that this meets up to the treads and risers with only little
visible gap.

How do I do this?

I'll use my chopsaw with laser guide to cut the straight lines, but what
about the bullnose radius, which is about 3/4" radius? I am thinking of
either a router or a very small jigsaw. Seems the router would be able to
navigate the tight radius easier, but one major slip, and there goes $50.
Cutting a jig for the router is another option, but a lot of work. Any
suggestions on the right jigsaw blade / setup to turn that tight radius with
very precise results?

Thx,
Tman

Here is how I did mine. I left 1 1/4" between the studs and the
treads/risers. But I'm simply a homeowner/1st time builder. I didn't
know how it was "supposed" to be done. Also, I used MDF, not a
beautiful piece of wood. I just routed the edge.
http://www.asberry.net/100040.htm
http://www.asberry.net/400015.htm

In article ,
tman9_at_comcast.netremoveunderscores says...

Well I made a set of oak stairs, and for a story that is too long to tell,
as the last step, I want to put on the stair skirts. They will be cut from
a 3/4" oak slab, and go on top of the treads / risers. I know this is going
to be challenging...
Thx,
Tman



The finish trimmer (skirt) usually is just a piece of wood fastened to the wall
first, then the treads and risers are cut to fit tight to it. You don't need to
fit the stairs into a complicated routed-out series of recesses. Of course, if
you already built the stairs tight to the wall...

Dennis