Stairs & Staircases

Steel Balustrades

There are many materials to choose from when deciding what to make your staircase balusters from. They can be manufactured from glass, timber, stainless steel, wire and so on. Steel is a great material for balustrading since not only is it very durable but also looks beautiful.

Steel balusters can be rounded, sqaure, decorative, or horizontal. Stairking’s Horizon balustrades consists of solid steel horizontal and vertical bars that allows for spans that keep their openness. This can be accompanied by a square timber handrail, such as the warm Australian hardwood Victorial Ash, with concealed cut strings for a modern staircase. Another example of the way in which steel can be used is in tapered steel balusters that alternate between plain and decorative, along with a wreathing scroll timber handrail. Or the balustrading could be designed as a continuously wreathing and twisting feature supporting a curved timber handrail. Horizontal steel balustrades are also a possibility, great for curved and spiral staircases.

Properties of Steel

Steel is an alloy consisting mostly of iron, with a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% that acts as a hardening agent. The more carbon added, the stronger and harded the iron becomes, but also the less ductile and more difficult to weld. Different elements are added to the iron to change the properties of the steel alloy. So nickel and manganese can be added to increase tensile strength, chromium increases the melting temperature, while chromium is added to prevent corrosion. The strength and durability of steel makes it a great material for staircase balustrading.

Modern steelmaking began in 1858 with the discovery of the Bessemer process, enabling large amounts of steel to be produced cheaply. This was rendered obsolete in the 1950s with basic oxygen steelmaking, as oxygen pumped into the furnace limited impurities. Carbon steel (also known as mild steel), composed only of iron and carbon, makes up 90% of contemporary steel production, although many alloys exist.

Timber

Timber is wood that has been felled. Timber is used for all sorts of purposes, from wood pulp for paper production to furniture, structural materials, tools, toys, artworks, weapons and so on. The two main types of timber are softwoods and hardwoods, although many materials are actually engineered wood products today.

Hardwood is sourced from angiosperm trees,  which are usually produce flowers, are broad-leaved, mostly deciduous in temperate latitudes or evergreen in the tropics.

Softwoods come from conifer trees, which tend to be evergreen. There are about a hundred times as many hardwoods as softwoods, and yet softwoods are used in about 80% of the world’s timber production. The traditional centres of softwood production are in the Baltic region and North America.  The reason softwoods are used so extensively is that it is easy to work with. There are fewer cells in softwood trees and yet they grow longer than hardwoods, making them usually soft. Hardwoods on the other hand have a more complex structure with vessels that vary in size, shape of perforation plates and structure of cell wall. Common hardwoods include the oaks, beech, ash, maple and cherry.

Timber Balustrading

There are many balustrade styles in which timber can be used. These include horizontal timber slats, outlook balustrades, turned timber balustrades, square timber balustrades, and combination balustrades. Stairking’s horizontal timber balustrades use stainless steel handrail fixed over stainless steel uprights, and tightly spaced horizontal timber slats. The Outlook balustrade is configured with two vertical stainless steel balusters at each end of a section, with horizontal timber rails as balustrades and a timber handrail.

The turned timber balustrades can use a traditional or modern style, accompanied by different types of scrolls, newel posts, carved or plain handrails, closed or open cut strings. The combination balustrade combines a rectangular timber balustrade with a feature balustrade, such as a double twist and basket steel baluster.