This was a big project with challenge for me. It had to be something special, not just an ordiniar stairs, which you can order from a stairs builder. The stairs came in my livingroom, so it had to go with the rest. A staircase with the combination of hardwood stairsbeams and plexiglass steps I still had not found on the Internet. Is this staircase, official finished at the 10-5-2009 the first one with this special combination of materials?
There a few aspects in my design, which I had to sort out: how moulding/routing the grooves for the steps into the wood. On closer investigation almost every step of the total of twelve did not match to their unit of measure of 20 mm gauge. This vary from from 19 till 22 mm. Even both ends of a step had not the same thickness. This unpleasant quality is formed by the mouldingprocess of the plexiglass GS, they told me. Because I want to maintain a margin of 0,5 mm, so the routing of every groove of both glue-sides had to be adjust.
An other disadvantage of plexiglass versus hardwood is the flexibility or the sag of a step when you stand on it. Even a little sag could load the gluejoint too much and will turn loose on the long run. A step with a thickness of 40 mm still had a sag and was not really favourable as far to his prize and weight! A step with a T-profile gave in tests no sag and therefore does not load the glue-joint. That is why I choose at the end for the more laborious T-profile stepconstruction.
The reason I took plexiglass with a setasand-surface upon the standard crystal clear version had several reasons: safety; the surface is more non slip and scratches does not show up much. Plexiglass is not as hard as glass, so you will get scratches rapidly. If you send a ray of light into the step, the setasand surface shall lightup beautiful. This in contrast with the crystal clear version (see stairslamp) It is also the question if people dare to walk on crystal clear steps. A contractor told me that I could sandpaper the crystal clear steps by myself when they become scratchy in the course of time.
The stairsbeams of hard maple exist of two parts: mijn woodsupplier did not had beams long enough for the total lenght and I not the space to work. The beams overlap eachother with 1 metre. It was impossible to press the right angle woodgluejoints with glueclamps, therewith became these gluejoints not so strong for torsion woodtensions. By making maple woodpins across the grain connecting both beams these tensions could be prevent. (see second detailpicture)
