Ruud Vekemans

Spiral staircase under construction.

Many thanks to Steve, Jim and Steve for the occasional extra hand to do glue ups and lift things!

Here I am laminating a stringer 

section on the bending form.

Below a test piece for the hand rail.

Octagonal glue up to create the 12 1/2 ft long
center post

A simple concave hand scraper works best to 

fine-tune the round shape of the post.

Crazy glue up to add a solid edge detail
to the bottom of the stringer.

Stringer is up!
It consists of the top four treads and a 90 degree return to the circular wall at the upper floor level.









This spiral staircase is partly exposed and partly built into a circular wall.
Exposed stringer sections and center post temporarily assembled, waiting to receive treads and risers.

The stringer will get an oak veneer glued to the exposed inner side.
See photo's below.













Mortises for treads and risers in the center post.
Also see photo below.

                                                                           

Another interesting glue up.

This time a whole stringer section is

fitted into a vacuum bag to glue a veneer 

to the inside of the stringer.

Finished product see photo below.

Edge detail.

Router has a custom made convex bottom 

plate to run on a concave surface.

To run on a convex surface the router needs

a concave bottom plate.

Curved sanding blocks to smoothen the 
surfaces.

Finish treatment of the center post.

Below squaring of the mortises for treads 
and risers.

Tread and riser assembly

Completed assembly.

Several parts of the hand and guard
rail system laminated.

Rails under construction.
Above some extra trim added to the guard rail.
Below the curved handrail shaped to an elliptical shape.

More to follow!