7/22-24/08 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I stopped to refill the propane tanks and arrived at the property at 2:30. I was disappointed again to find that the peanut was gone from upstairs and I had caught a mouse downstairs. It is too much of a long shot to assume that there were four mice that got in a few weeks ago. It is more likely that there is some hard-to-find hole somewhere that the occasional mouse finds. I'll have to find it before too long and plug it up.

I spent the afternoon chiseling rock with my Bosch Bulldog roto-hammer. I needed to widen the channel for the stringer and I also dug it quite a bit deeper so I would have to cut less of the stringer away. I'll wait to see how the steps come out before I chisel any rock inside the staircase.

In the evening I could hear what I think is a mouse chewing in the trailer between the ceiling and the roof. They were in there last year too but I could never find out how they got in. Maybe I'll have another look if they keep at it.

On Wednesday there was no sign of mice in the cabin. That hole must be pretty obscure, even for mice.

I went to work and installed a 12-foot stringer in the channel I had chiseled out of the rock. I had to scribe and cut away about 3 feet of the bottom of the stringer so that it conforms to the contour of the rock. The gray jay family came around for peanuts as soon as they heard me working.

Before I went in for lunch, I took the board pile apart where the packrats had been nesting on the porch. I think they had already vacated the place because there was no sign of them. They had made quite a mess, though, and I am glad it is finally cleaned up. From now on, I won't be so tolerant of having them as near neighbors.

After lunch, I finished installing the inside, or eastern-most stringer that I had fitted to the rock and I screwed on plywood skirts from the stringer to the bedrock. Then I installed the matching outside stringer. This one went right up against a fairly big Ponderosa Pine tree. Instead of cutting into the tree, as I had originally planned, I cut and beveled the stringer so that it fits up against the tree. I screwed both sections of the stringer to the tree but when all the skirts and risers are in place, I'll take those screws out of the tree so that I will be able to get the forms off once the concrete is in place. Not many people incorporate a live tree into their forms like that. With all the stringers in place, I could finally see the exact outline of the staircase. I was very happy with the results.

On Thursday there was again no sign of mice in the cabin.

I decided to see if I could get the phone wire into a conduit rather than embedding the wire directly into the concrete. Since both ends of the wire are already buried, I can't easily slip the end of the wire through the conduit. I made a jig to hold a 10-foot section of 3/4" PVC conduit and I used a Skilsaw to rip through one side of it all the way. Then after trying many approaches which didn't pan out, I found a way to use two big screwdrivers to open the cut in the pipe so that I could get the phone wire inside. After about an hour, I only had the phone wire in about a foot. But then I learned how to do it a little quicker and I did the rest of the pipe in another 45 minutes or so. I had started on the section of wire from the building to the first section that is buried, which is almost exactly 10 feet. That section needs to be vaulted in concrete too, so I'm glad that I at least have that much in conduit now. I'll use duct tape to seal the kerf to keep concrete and water out. The question now is whether I want to take the time to do the same thing for the 60 feet inside the staircase. I ripped six more sections of conduit so that I am ready to do it if I decide to. I probably will.

Next, I took the calculations I had made for the staircase configurations and measured and marked the stringers in the neighborhood of the tree and of the rock I had chiseled through. The tree came out perfectly. That is, the four or so inch gap in the stringer where the tree shows through is right in front of a riser so that there will be little or no concrete placed up against the tree. It couldn't have come out better.

The rock also came out as good as it could. This was by design. Based on the calculations, I had a choice of using 25 steps or 24 steps in the upper flight. The rule-of-twenty-five value was almost the same in the two cases. The Rule of 25 says that twice the riser height plus the tread depth should be as close to 25 inches as possible. 25 steps gave a value of 24.42 inches and 24 steps gave a value of 25.43 inches. Those numbers are almost equally close to 25 inches, so either choice is acceptable. But in looking at both choices on the drawings, I could see that choosing 25 steps made the steps match the contour of the rock a lot better and would require a lot less additional chiseling.

Now that the stringers were in place, I made the actual measurements and drew pencil lines on the stringer where the tread and riser faces would be. I took a picture that shows that it fits as nearly perfectly as it could.

After looking at that stringer in the rock, now that it was scribed and fitted so nicely in the rock, I realized that it would be best to cut most of the stringer away over the rock. Otherwise, when the forms are removed, there will be that 1 1/2" channel where the stringer was plus another gap almost as big in the rock on the other side. These would have to be filled with concrete later to make the job look good and be a little safer. By cutting away a section of the stringer and making the riser(s) in that section long enough to reach all the way over to the rock, the stairs will then be continuous right over to the rock from the outset. That's what I decided to do. This again will be something that not many other builders would do. For me, it's all part of the fun.

I will still need to chisel away a small amount of rock, but I'll wait until the risers are installed so that I can see exactly where and how much to cut away. The gray jay family showed up again for peanuts. I took some pictures of the forms now that all the stringers are in place so the outline of the staircase is clear. I loaded the Skilsaw and a bunch of screws into the truck so that I could use them to make risers over the weekend. By doing the job at home, it frees up more time for other things when I am up at the property. I left for home at 1:30

7/25/08 (Friday) I bought a bunch of 2x8s at Home Depot along with a wood float, a magnesium float, and an edger with flat ends for use in working the concrete. John had recommended these tools to me.

As it turns out, the riser heights for the two flights were within a hundredth of an inch of being the same. Since I can't rip 2x8s any more accurately than that I made all the risers the same: 6 9/16 inches high. I first ripped the 2x8s at a 45 degree angle and then cut them to 3-foot lengths. John had told me it was easier to rip them after they had been cut to length, but I am sure he had in mind using a table saw for doing the ripping. Since I don't have a table saw, and I ripped them with a Skilsaw, I figured it would be easiest to rip the 10 and 12-foot planks first, so that is what I did.

I drilled three holes in each end of each of the 36 risers (except for the two long ones for the rock) and started 210 3-inch screws into the holes. The screws will be driven at an angle from the fronts of the risers into the stringers. There are just too many places where it would be awkward, if not impossible, to drive the screws from the stringers into the endgrain of the risers. Also, I could do all the work of starting the screws in Seattle making the time to install the risers at the site a lot quicker. I was happy to get those riser assemblies made and loaded into the truck.

I thought about using 6-inch mesh screen in the bottom of the staircase, but I learned that Home Depot only had 4-foot wide screens. That would mean a lot of cutting and fitting and after thinking about it, I decided that I didn't need the screen at all. All of the concrete will be placed directly on clean, rough, and irregular granite so I don't think it will need wire to make it strong enough for the load it will carry. I could always change my mind, but for now I think I will skip the wire.

I talked to John and was excited to learn that there is a possibility that he might be out here to help me place the concrete. He wants to come out sometime anyway to windsurf the Gorge and/or Hood River in Oregon, so it would be great if he and I could work out our respective schedules to make it happen. This is getting even more exciting than the pour of the footings for the building which would be hard to beat.