Shoutout to the old-timer who said I was overcomplicating my stair stringers

I spent 3 hours laying out stringers with a framing square and all the little notches and gauges. An old guy walks by at the lumber yard and says just use a speed square and a straightedge, it's faster and more accurate. I tried it on my next set and cut my time down to 45 minutes with zero mistakes. So which side are you on, precision layout or the speed square method for stringers? I'm still not fully sold one way or the other.

2 comments

2 Comments

jordancoleman1mo agoMost Upvoted

The framing square method was designed by people who sit in an office and write books. It works but it's like using a spreadsheet to count your change. Speed square and a straightedge is the real world way. I watched a guy once lay out a whole set of stairs with just his tape measure and a pencil, no square at all. He just marked the rise and run on a 2x12 and connected the dots with chalk. Took him ten minutes and they came out dead perfect. Sometimes we overthink stuff because we're scared of looking lazy.

richardknight1mo ago

Last week I spent 45 minutes setting up a framing square for one stringer. Caught my boot on it and kicked the whole thing off the saw horses. Old timer walked by, laughed, and did it with a speed square and a pencil in about 6 minutes. Felt like a complete idiot. His stairs came out better too.