Replies

1. 
   RickL | Dec 08, 2005 03:34pm | #1

   You mean a stair tread housing jig! Porter Cable used to make them years ago. There were two types. You should post over in breaktime as it's more house related than furniture realted. Pretty easy thing to make with a piece of baltic birch. I assume you know the particulars of your local building codes for rise and run requirements. Fine HomeBuilding would the mag to look in.

   http://www.mackay.co.uk/acatalog/Catalogue_Stair_Housing_Jigs_856.html

   http://www.dm-tools.co.uk/store/browse.php3?section=4683&level=4

   Google turned this up.

    

   Or perhaps this is it...

   http://stairtool.com/index/info.htm

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   Edited 12/8/2005 7:41 am ET by RickL

   
   

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   Edited 12/8/2005 8:57 am ET by RickL

1. 
   fuji | Dec 11, 2005 04:47am | #6

   Thank you Rick. I  found and ordered the stair tool I was looking for. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help. The funny thing is I live on Cape Cod in Massachusetts and that is where the company selling the stair tool is located. I am helping a friend with 4 stairways and this will speed the job along. Happy Holidats to you and yours.

   Fuji.... 

2. 
   DougU | Dec 09, 2005 08:49am | #2

   There is a guy that makes and sells them on E-bay, but man they are pricey!

   I think in the neighborhood of 6 or $700.

   Doug

   Edit, my mistake, I thought you were talking about the guide to route the treads and risers into the stringer.

   Disregard my mention of the item on ebay!

   
   

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   Edited 12/9/2005 5:51 pm ET by DougU

3. 
   WillGeorge | Dec 09, 2005 09:39pm | #3

   Not sure but I thought good ol' Norm had plans for one.. Well, he use one on one of his TV shows so probably has plans..

4. 
   KevO | Dec 09, 2005 10:11pm | #4

   I've think I've seen the one you mentioned in FHB but don't have an issue around to search for the add .  Here's an example of what I've "cobbled" together from plywood to scribe the treads to fit.  I think the one in FHB was aluminium. 

    

   http://www.nbnnews.com/NBN/issues/2005-03-07/Tips/

    

1. 
   WillGeorge | Dec 10, 2005 10:16pm | #5

   Dang little hammer broke the Jig!

5. 
   cowtown | Dec 12, 2005 10:50am | #7

   yes, you can buy them, to be sure, but faced with fitting and scribing about 40 window sills in r-40 insulated wallls with rounded drywall returns, I simply made my own. so that I could indeed just get the job done.

   I used two sets of the LV "story stick" slides, and made plywood ends on them and used standard Lee Valley 1/4-20 ji,g fittings such that I could lay out the parallelogramish gizmo in the window well, lock it in place, and transfer the pattern to the oak sills.

   I still have and use this methodology, which is exquisitely suited to template making for "capured" countertops, stair treads (of course)

   The really "expensive" part of the jig making excercise was that I had to make pieces so that I could accommodate window sills that ran from 24"ish in size up to 96" in size.

   If anyone is at all interested, I could get a picture together for ya -on request. .

   I remember this excercise in fititation  vividly, as it was one of those "eureka" moments (at last for my pea-brain). The drawback was that the transfer of patterns was so exact, that I had to deliberately "undersize" and back bevel the  the pieces in order for them to drop into place, which they did.

   I have since transmogrified this naive and antiquated  technology to allow me to use a similar methodology to fit crown mouldings up to 18' length (by myself).

   And it didn't rely on any FWW oir FHB advert to prompt the ideas, merely the transmogrification of the adaptation of the really old concept of the "story stick" to the task at hand. And the gauge I had cobbled up was recently used to cut laminate flooring treads for a cuppla floors of stairs on 2x stringers, with the result that folks who were doing the lino install wanted to know how I got the treads to fit so exactly. It has also been used for "captured" countertops (enclosed at both ends)

   If it's anything to ya, I don't think that I've ever encountered a flooring fella in the past 10 years who even knows what a stair tread guage is, let alone how tho make their own cheaply....

   Where there''s a will there's a way, and if you ever get a chance to look at an old starrett tool catalogue, you will see that they too sold a "stair tread gauge" way back when. Alas, no longer.

   This wasn't the first time, nor will it be the last, that my pea-brained and simplistic observations of "how they used to do things" has paid off in these modern times.

   Just my observation for those what might find themselves in similar situations.

   Eric in Cowtown

    

1. 
   sebastian | Dec 13, 2005 04:28am | #8

   Try Collinstool.com  They sell a guage that mounts to a 1x4 and can be extended to any length by using by using differen lengths of stock. They also sell some other unique tool attachments.