Manual of Purpose-Made Woodworking Joinery

Designing, setting out and making stairs 127

by creating an open background, continuous narrow

strips of 6mm ply were then fixed to the top and

bottom edges, as illustrated, to which the apron lining

was fixed. The landing nosing- piece was grooved to

receive the scotia mould and it was also housed to a

6mm depth to receive the ends of the skew- nailed

balusters (spindles). The controlling datum for the

apron lining’s lateral position was the centralizing of

the spindles to the newels.

The curved handrail over the outer

return- string

Figure 6.57: With such a shallow curve and slightly

ramped- end, this handrail could have been made three

as well, were easily marked with a round drawing aid
(such as a paint- tin lid) and formed with a smoothing
plane, rasp and an abrasive sanding block. Four newels
and two half- newels were required – and the square
portion of the half newel on the stair was housed out to
carry the end of the inner (wall) string and mortised to
receive the tenons of the return outer string. Finally, the
square- ended newels were finished with slim, lathe-
turned pendant caps glued to their underside.

Apron lining details

Figure 6.56: Because the 9mm- ply apron lining was
pierced with an open tracery pattern, I covered the
rough face- side of the sawn landing- trimmer with a
6mm plywood lining. And to gain a better visual effect

Figure 6.55 (a) This shows a newel cap suspended
above its position on the spigot- end of one of the lathe-
turned newel posts; (b) shows a plan view of the newel
cap with the 68 × 45mm handrail mitred to it with
bisected angles; and (c) shows the four separated compo-
nents of the newel post in the central position of the gal-
leried balustrade, i.e. handrail (grooved for baluster- ends
and spacer fillets); spigot- ended and turned newel post;
the square portion of the newel post; and the pendant
cap. Note that, of the two pendant caps required, one
was cut in half for the half- newels.

(b)

(c)

(a)

Landing

35 × 35 mm

balusters

9 mm pierced

plywood

apron lining

Figure 6.56 The galleried landing’s apron- lining details

related to the central newel.

*

* Centre for

ramped end of handtrail

Figure 6.57 The curved handrail follows the shape of

the curved string- top below and is mitred into the newel

cap after being eased into a level position by the handrail

ramp. As shown, the end of the handrail above the half-

newel was sunk into the interior wall by 40 to 50mm.