Winder stairs

[peterbrown]

I am trying to create winder stairs the way a CA video teaches. I did it this afternoon and it worked well. I tried it again this evening for practice and it did not work. The problem is I first draw the sections as attached. Them select the first, and click on the top square handle to force the sections to join. this time I do just that and nothing. Any ideas here? Have I got something on or off in prefs or defaults?

thanks

pb

[David J. Potter]

Winders require nearby walls to properly form (even invisible walls are better than none nearby, they help to define the spaces they will fill in with the winders).
This Help Database Article may also help.

DJP

[Curtis Johnson]

Peter:

The procedure you appear to be using should work. I just went through all the motions of creating a 3 section winder stairs and everything worked just fine, even with object snaps turned off. Not sure what to tell you other than you might try to quit Chief and then come back in and try it again. I watched v10 video #636 to see what you could possibly be missing and nothing really obvious comes to mind, especially since you had luck creating a winder stairs earlier in the day.

[Allen42acj]

Edit object parts might be on..

Louis has a good tutorial on his site..

[peterbrown]

That was it, thank you

[Allen42acj]

What was it?

[Gene Davis]

And for an excellent article showing all the details of actually building a staircase that winds like this, check out Andy Engel's piece in the current issue of Fine Homebuilding.

I found that Chief's stairbuilding tools don't permit you to get into the nitty gritty of designing the parts with piecut treads so things all meet code. The IRC wants to see a 10" minimum tread width at the 12" walk line, and a 6" minimum tread width at the inside.

A CAD package, Chief's or anything else you are comfortable with, is useful to do the 2D geometry workout ahead of time, so your wall spread is right to house everything.

In the FH article, you see Andy doing the workout at full scale, drawing the whole thing on plywood sheets he has laid and fixed to the floor, using squares, compass, and divider.

[peterbrown]

Thanks Gene, Ill take a look. On site I almost always layout full size on the floor myself.

Allen, It was my edit object parts that was on. Turned it off and presto!

[Allen42acj]

Peter
You're welcome then.
Bad news is you owe Doug or Dan $1.00
Forgot who was going to retire on the money from that answer..

[Dan Park]

Yep - I think I would be well off if I had a dollar for every time I answered a question with "Edit object parts is on". That and "temporary dimensions are turned off."

Although it looks like you guys are getting pretty good at answering these questions yourselves!

Gene, on your walkline issue, have chief show the walk line. I think you will find the walk line is correct. You can build a staircase with 10 in tread at the 12" walkline and have 6 in at the radius only if you specify a large enough inside radius. Make the radius too small and it's not going to work. I don't think we cover that much in the videos but it's easy enough to move the stair sections around to get what you want.

[louis]

Dan,

The problem is that the code does not use a radius for the measurement. Chief's walk line is not correct relative to the IRC.

But I belive that the last time I did this I used a Chief inside radius of 7 and it was pretty close.

[Allen42acj]

I have not seen any one use winders since the new code.
They were great to save room, now they take up extra space..

[Gene Davis]

Thanks for that comment, Allen.

I took a careful look again at my workout 2D for the winder that was the subject of my post here at Chieftalk. My staircase has the code min 10" tread width, and I made it 39" width all the way up.

My scheme is a basic U, and each winder turn of three treads fits in a square with sides of 48-9/16", when the code is met at minimum. Your remark made me look at that number, and how it compares to a stair built with straight landing turns of 90 degrees.

With a 39 x 39 landing, and the 10" treads, each 3-rise landing is thus 49 x 49.

The winder, with all of its to-build cost, saves me a measly 7/8-inch overall in staircase width, and an even measlier 7/16" in depth.

So, out the window with the winder! And now my plan won't have that annoying 1/8" fraction, for wall placement.

Thanks!

[Allen42acj]

Gene
You're welcome.
I used to like framing winders too..