Stairmaster is something I have said several times I am not.  Many here disagree and I appreciate the comments saying I am, but not to sell myself short, let me make my point in a more correct way.   In a nutshell I am trying to explain that many of us are capable of building some kind of a masterpiece if we are given the time to do so.

I used to handcraft Kentucky muzzleloaders from scratch starting out with a chunk of select curly maple.  I would spend a few hundred hours roughing out the stock, inletting the barrel, the flintlock, butt plate, patch box, nose piece…triggerguard, etc.

The compound twisting curves that make up the architecture of a Kentucky muzzleloader make these rifles a most beautiful and elegant adornment to any fireplace mantle.  They are just pleasing to the eye to look at if you spend your time cautiously removing the right amount of wood…not leaving too much or taking off too much.  The lines have to  be smooth and flowing..and when you do it right…you wont have to be told.  It will strike a chord with your soul looking at it..feeling it…

Now,,,to my point.   If I ever had a client that could afford the hours in a curved stairway equal to what I put into one of my rifles…then yes…it probably would be a masterpiece in my opinion.  But…I havent been presented that opportunity yet, and so I have not built a masterpiece for a stairway as of yet.

But..to make a living in my area building curved stairways…they have to be nice…however there isnt any market for extravagancies, so I build a clean simple stairway, not anything near the work I have in my rifles….its just not economically feasible.

Take for instance just the process of inletting the buttplate on my rifles.  You rough the stock to a rough fit…then start the laborious procedure of placing inletting black, (basically vaseline that is black colored}, on the inside of the buttplate, tap in onto the stock….remove…scrape away the wood where the inletting black was left….reapply the inletting black, and do this literally for days.  When you are done however, if you have a lot of patience, you have a union between the brass and the maple that is absolutely perfect no matter how close you look.  It literally grows out of the wood.

I dont spend time fitting my treads that tight…as that would be one clue the stair was masterfully built.  Instead, a strong compromise is maid…and a joint that would be unacceptable on one of my rifles is just fine on a stairway.  I am not saying the stairjoints are sloppy…they arent…but that final few thousandths of an inch takes HOURS.

So to finish up this long winded diatribe…if I had a client that came to me and had the resourses to pay the difference…and if they knew the difference…then Yes…I could build a stairway that in my mind is a masterpiece.   Many of us could build masterpieces in whatever we do if just given the time to do so.

Now…I am comparing the effort I put into my rifles being applied to stairways.   My rifles are not masterpieces in their own world…because my handiwork is very basic when put against some very awesome executions of rifle building mastery I have seen.  My rifles are just mediocre if placed side by side against some that I have seen and felt.

So defining a masterpiece is kind of relative ,  a nicely built Kentucky muzzleloader like I built and shown pictures here, would make a stairway exceptional if just the time was allowed to build it with the same precision and finesse.

By the way…I built and sold Kentucky muzzleloaders, not for the money as I would starve doing so…but strictly for the passion of honing my woodworking skills to the limits of my patience.  Now, all I need is a client with deep pockets so I can build my first masterful stairway.

I dont finish my stairways…but again, if I did finish them the way I finish my rifles…the price would be through the roof.

The steps I do on the maple stocks after it is shaped..is to sand it with 80 grit. 150, 220, then 320.   This is just the start.  Next I go from 0 steel wool to 0000 steel wool.  I still am not done.  Then I burnish the wood with a cotton sock, and burn the curl with chromium trioxide.  After that, more burnishing to take off the raised grain….then one coat of linseed oil once a day for a week…then once a week for a month…then once a month for a year…This leaves a beautiful, have to be seen and felt finish.  That being said…my finish doesnt compare to true rifle mastepieces.

Stan