Hi Mo and others

the stairs are a straight flight down and end up against a door opening.

The home builders were not of good caliber and eventho it is a very nice home there are many errors, this being one of them and i refer to the position of the stairway.

I am in the process of preparing the Ash cap for the sloping wall now and I am about 1 week away from doing the mortising for the sloping railing support spindles.

I sure appreciate all your feedback on installing the sloping mortises for the spindles, I do believe that I will just need to take it slow and steady, and judging from what you guys are saying maybe a modest jig that could direct the angle of a freehand drill and bit might be my best solution in this case.

Any other comments are welcome

NH

I've used a mortising attachment in a drill press on an angled table then attach the board, then the spindles.
The biggie to me is that this is a non code and dangerous set of stairs. I'd have no part of them. Stairs are I think the second most injury producing area of a house. This is a liability suit waiting to happen. In cases like that if there is an injury the lawyers don't stop till they've involved Everyone involved in the installation. I suggest handing the architect HIS problem back to resolve in a safe and legal manner. When you work on it you share responsibility. Amazing that it passed rough framing inspection?

Thanks Don P.

That is a very good point, and From what I can make out the lads that did the house seemed to work very close with the building code

NH

Hi everyone
JUst to close out this thread, The spindles are now installed and the railing is prettywell finished.

after some deliberation and taking into consideration all your comments, I proceeded ahead with the task of boring the angled holes for the spindles.

I used my cordless drill with a speed bore bit, and I made up a jig that fit snugly over the double nosing tread. This jig had of course the angle projected on a small piece of 1\2" plywood that was offset to one side to allow me to posiion my drill and to site along the angle, and it also acted as a centering device by letting me rest theside of the drill against it.

It actually came out quite well, and I am quite pleased with the results.

Thanks for all your comments, help and interest.

I hope this may help someone else who may be experiencing an istallation of this type

NH