I messed up a staircase stringer so bad I had to scrap the whole thing

I was working on a custom staircase in a house over in Arlington back in March, and I got too confident with my layout. I marked the first stringer in about 20 minutes, cut it out with my circular saw, and then realized the rise was off by nearly a half inch on the top step. Turned out I used the wrong multiplier when I was doing my math, and I didn't double check before cutting. I had to toss that whole stringer and start fresh, which cost me an extra $40 in lumber and about two hours of time. My boss walked up right as I was throwing the scrap in the dumpster and just said "well, that's a learning experience." Now I always verify my layout on the framing square before I make any cut, and I write the numbers right on the wood so I can see them. Has anyone else had a stringer layout fail that forced you to scrap a whole piece?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_henry9d ago

Did you at least get to keep the scrap for blocking or did it go straight in the dumpster?

betty_white398d ago

At least you got a good story and a solid $40 lesson out of it, right? I bet that scrap made a real nice fire starter too, maybe helped warm up the crew the next morning. The boss's "learning experience" line is the universal code for "I'm glad it was your screwup and not mine.