Manual of Purpose-Made Woodworking Joinery

112 Designing and making stairs to current building regulations

portable powered routers became established (even

though the first portable router (the ‘Kelley Electric

Router’) was patented and marketed in Buffalo, USA

in the early 1900s). As illustrated, the string- housings

Figure 6.39: It may be of interest to enthusiasts of
traditional hand- skills – as opposed to mechanized
hand- skills – to glimpse the housing- technique used
in small joinery shops about five decades ago, before

Figures 6.38 (a) to (f) (continued)

A A

12 mm

12 mm

Section A-A: Chisel-chopping the housing

Stanley No.71 hand router completing the housing

This portion chiselled out

to relieve the top saw cut

Tenon-saw cuts into

relieving holes

This portion remains to protect the

nosing edges until the router

work is complete

Figure 6.39 The above procedure was necessary when trenching out the step- housings by hand- skills techniques.
Relieving holes of 12mm (or less) depth were made with a Forstner- type bit to receive the toe- end of a tenon saw and the
sides of the housings were cut to an approx angle of 1 in 12 (86°); this was to achieve a dovetail effect when the steps
were wedged up. Then the housings were chopped up quite deeply with a firmer chisel and mallet – and finished off
with the hand router.

Cut shoulder

and reduce to

16 mm tenon

thickness

Mark haunch

and centre line,

square the top

tenon and

divide by 3

* 16 mm

haunch

Mark top tenon

with pitch board

and square

the bottom

tenon

Remove top and

middle waste

areas to

complete the

tenons

Uncommon

top- and bottom-

shoulder

reductions to

combat shrinkage

*

(^1) ⁄ 3
(^1) ⁄ 3
(^1) ⁄ 3
(c)
(b) (d) (e) (f)
Housing the strings by traditional hand-
techniques