1/4" oak for stairs

Daryl in Nanoose · 12-09-2006, 12:00 PM

Well here is the situation, I have a set of stairs that can not be removed because of the way it was originaly built( would have to tear apart to much of the house to get the treads out). Right now they have thin carpet glued to the treads and risers so I can not put anything down that would be thicker than what is there now. I have been reading about guys that have been useing click flooring for this but I had a thought and would like to get a few opions on this.
What about using 1/4" oak plywood gluded in place with about 3 or 4 coats of mat finish poly. It seems to me this would be better than that fake stuff. My idea here is to put fake strings in on the sides with the treads and risers cut out and then run the plywood in between with a real nice solid noseing. So what do you think?

Square Eye · 12-10-2006, 01:04 AM

The veneer on 1/4 ply is so thin..
It may be worth it to have some wide oak boards run through a resaw and planing. you'd get 2 good boards out of a 3/4 board.. It would be solid and you wouldn't have to worry about delaminating/bubbling/splintering plywood.

Daryl in Nanoose · 12-10-2006, 06:28 AM

I was thinking about this idea of mine and realized not a whole lota difference between the 1/4" oak and the click flooring then another brainstorm was to use real wood laminate flooring which has a thicker wood vaneer from a reputable manufactor like karr. But that was a real good idea you have there and will have to look into it because I am noticing a few customers are asking about this and would like to have a better way than using click flooring.Thanks a bunch.

Kerrylib · 12-13-2006, 04:04 PM

I would go with the veneer'd flooring material. If you resaw thicker stock, I would suspect you may have a problem with the pieces splitting along the grain if you make it too thin. How would you attach the pieces? I would certainly want them SOLID for stairs. That being said, I am thinking glueing them down.

Good quality engineered flooring should have a thick enough veneer and tough enough finish that wear should not be a big issue.