Aloha Jim,

Thank you for your plans. My staircase will be a little different from yours as I don't have room for the round pole. I will be spiraling around a 4x4, using beveled 1x4 as spacers to form a 12 sided post. It will be a challenge but I love it and I have all the geometry figured, I needed your plans for the handrail diameter. I will have 99" of rise and can only rotate 270 deg. Wish me luck. Duane and I ended up making a generic step with a 5" hole to rotate around the 4x4 post and 2x6 stock to form the 12 sided post wrap between steps. Now comes the fun part, making the handrail.

Duane (Slope Trash) Glover

P.S. I'm called Slope Trash because a group of us retired and almost retired guys get together on Saturdays and fly 50" foam RC slope gliders and try to hit each other, my glider is getting pretty trashed after over 300 hits and crashes this year.

I built your beautiful stairs for a wedding present for my daughter and son-in law. They have stairs to their finished basement but they are from the garage. They get nothing but compliments on the new spiral staircase just inside the front door in their living room.

We were able to squeeze out a little over five feet in diameter. I am a CAD designer so I was able to plot a full size pattern to get the right diameter. Floor to floor was just under 8 ft. I had a 1.5" radius bit from another project that I used on the underside of the landing for a softer edge for headroom. The mid spindles and the ones around the opening upstairs are 1.75 x 1.25. Gives a little variation. The wood is all oak finished with a dark mahogany stain. It was a rewarding project and wedding gift.

Thanks,

Bill Griffin

Hey Jim,

Here's a few pics of your design. The customer loved it, and it was a blast to build! It was made out of poplar and I had no means to any veneers of the same wood so the customer chose Eucalyptus. It's going to be stained shit brown by the guys wife, ahhhhhh.

I guess you can't control everything.

Thanks much,

Jim Gabrielle

Every thing is going to plan and has gone well except for the occasional stupid mistake on my part. I have included several pics of the progress.

When I place the stair case the first time all of my treads seem to sag about 3/8 at the outside. Granted, the top pole is only hand tight and the diameter of the stair case is 78. I was just wondering if this is normal. DJ

I've never built one that large around, 72 has been the biggest for me, so sagging a little like you're finding may be about what you're going to get in the end. When you cut the baluster that sits on the floor did you make it any extra long to hold up the bottom tread a little? Jim

Can I make the hand rail skinnier, say 2.5 wide, plus the 1.5 for the thickness of the stock. DJ

You can easily make it narrower, but thicker would make it much harder to twist into position. Watch the thickness, one an inch thick is close to impossible to install. You're better off making two and installing one atop the other to get extra thickness. Jim

I ordered the spiral stair plans from you a few years ago. I finally got them in. I had many compliments. As you see I made a square landing as it fit my second floor better and being the first step had to be perpendicular to the wall. The square landing made for a little less head room on the stairs but it worked good for me. As you notice the treads are not notched and the balusters are notched is what I needed to do to keep my 360 degrees and have my first step and landing where they needed to be. For the railing on the loft we decided to go the rustic look to kind of match the ceiling. I covered the steel pipe with white birch bark and installed white birch spindles and balusters.

Hi Jim,

The stairs came out great. I did a few things different, but the plans were a great help. I also took a lot of pictures during the process, and carried an extra tread, spindle, spacer so I wouldn't have to go through all the steps in case I made a mistake. Everyone loves it, and say it looks beautiful. All I have left to do is a couple of screw plugs, and a little handrail at the top, which I'm in the process of.

Thanks,

Bob