Using stair gauges to lay out stringers
 

Regarding the earlier thread expressing puzzlement over building a small
set of stairs: those who want to do this but don't know how to go about
it should realize it ain't rocket science. Heck, even a klutz like
myself can figure it out.

Without going into all the gory details on how to lay out stringers (a
topic that is very well covered out there in Web-land, as well as in
print publications), I'd just like to point out that there's a tool that
makes this task very much easier: a simple set of stair gauges, like
these: http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/items/2H390. (These are from
Grainger, but they're available everywhere. I got mine years ago from
Sears when I bought my Craftsman aluminum framing square.)

These handy li'l things clamp onto the edge of your framing square,
defining the rise (riser) and run (tread) of your stringer. After doing
the measuring and figuring, these make actually laying out the stringer
a piece of cake.

I've actually used these a few times, and in all cases I only had to cut
one set of stringers. I highly recommend them.


--
Found--the gene that causes belief in genetic determinism