Finetuning staircase

Remember how we replaced the old wooden staircase with a pretty rough looking staircase Pekka found, had sand blown, painted and installed? For nearly two years it has been waiting for the finishing touches, including such minor details such as wall attachments in both ends and in the middle to make it less shaky, and a decorative leather wrap around the hand rail. 

Insufficiently supported staircase

A few weeks ago when summer vacation started, it was back to the work place for Pekka, when he kicked off making of those missing parts. First, some metal work with a lathe...

Lathe at work

...then continuing by plasma cutting, welding, grinding, sanding and yes, finally painting.

Welded pieces

The first attempt to attach the end pieces to the hand rail was a catastrophe. Instead of 20 minutes, the process which included a huge chunk of a wall falling off, nothing attaching anywhere and numerous censored curses for bad luck took several hours. Finally, with a chemical anchor he succeeded in creating a reliable attachment.

Not the expected outcome

To prepare for welding the pieces together Pekka really took the time to secure a correct alignment.

Ready for welding

Then, with the borrowed welding equipment (Thank you Stenkka!) he was good to go...

Master welder at work

...and voilà, lower part of the staircase was finally done!

Permanently connected

After experiencing all the trouble in the lower end of the staircase, the upper end was a school book example. Indeed, 20 minutes later, Pekka was done. In addition to the ends, he added four more attachments in different parts of the staircase. No more shaking, no more funny noises. Perfect. 

Upper end completed

For the decoration of the hand rail we considered several options. Finally, the decision was done to use a string of cognac coloured leather inspired by the stand of the Senaattori light designed by Lisa Johansson-Pape for Orno.

Senaattori light by Lisa Johansson-Pape

So this time Pekka's work place served as a leather cutting studio for pieces of 25 mm in width.

Piece of leather on a cutting table

And seriously. Who wants to travel or relax on one's summer vacation, when the option is to do fun things at the office?

Master cutter at work

Pile of leather strings ready for staining

At the same time, Pekka has been conducting some color testing aiming for cognag color.  The colored leather will be also protected by beeswax.

Choise to be made

Before staining, we also needed to test whether there was enough material available to cover the entire hand rail. In the picture below the leather string around the rail still looks pretty awful, the actual coloured leather will be stretched around the rail when still wet to give it a nice, tight fit.

So, as soon as we have decided which staining to choose and how to connect the pieces of leather strings together, the story will continue...

Testing consumption