SANTOS MAHOGANY STAIR TREADS
Calgary, Alberta

This was our first run at making hardwood stairs out of Santos Mahogany. Believe me it is not the easiest wood to work with. We have learnt over the years that you have to use special glues and techniques to laminate up many of the exotic woods on the market today.

Santos is also a wood with a wide range of colours from quite a beautiful rosy-pink to a darker brown. We gave Bill the option of either gluing up the treads with different shades and colours in each tread or try for all the same shade in one tread and the alternate colouring in the next. He chose the latter.

I am taking my time in getting it done right so it should look great when finished. Everybody that comes over and sees the wood is in awe.

I must congratulate your warehouse man as he did a great job in packaging the material. There does not appear to be any shipping damage.

... B. Trefanenko, Calgary Alberta

Since santos mahogany is not commonly available as veneered plywood sheets, so we created 1/4" thick solid wood panels for Bill to use on the backs (risers) of the steps. The thinner wood keeps the cost down and makes installation easier when you're trying to trim to a tight fit.
In the same way Lacasse did a custom setup to cut stringer cap in Santos Mahogany, to finish off the top edge at the stringer-wall intersection.

"Hi Karen, I made templates out of corrugated plastic for the winder treads and then traced that out on the treads and used a cutting guide and circular saw to cut them. Worked great." ... Bill