7 Step Ladder!

Hi all! This is one of my smaller and simpler projects. But nontheless relevant or interesting. The thought behind this was. Why buy a aluminium ladder if I could make one specific for my requirements and whishes.

Here in the Netherlands buying a ladder is not cheap, the most simplest ones are 40 euro's (about 40 US dollars). And those are at a specific tool store. At a home center it's a bit more.
The wood for this project was about 10 euro so that was one big motivation.

If you are interested I have Free plans available from this ladder on my website:

www.seamm.nl

So my ladder needed to be 2.4 meters tall, about 95 inch. I used 3 pieces of dimensional lumber. 44 x 69 mm or 2 by 3 inch. 2.4 m long or 8 feet. The third piece I cut in four evenly spaced segments.

So my 4 pieces of lumber will become the treads. I sawed them in half with my table saw. A bandsaw would be quicker and cleaner. They had to pass twice through the saw in my situation. Or you could buy half a thin piece of board and not needing it to saw through.

Afther my saw action I grabbeb my plane and planed the pieces flat and even. This step was about 30 minutes of a workout so I could skip my upperbody fitness that day :P.

After that I round over the sharp edges. This is smart to do because otherwise those edges will splinter off after use.

The two stretchers or uprights are placed on the ground. And the threads are evenly spaced on them. at that point I checked if the angles and proportions are okay.

When I was happy enough, I came around and measured and marked where to put the treads.

In my design the legs are at an angle of 2 degrees. So I checked my layout with my protractor. Then I could set up my chop saw and make those treads to length.

A handsaw would work fine but take a bit longer.

The treads are made to length and angle. Now I could place them on the layout. I predrilled than put on the glue and screwed in 4 screws per tread. This bond is plenty strong. The woodglue is stronger than the surroundiing wood and there are 2 steel screws keeping everything in place.

in the video this step took a bit longer because I screwed on the 2 treads of the 7 and then took field measurements of the treads before cutting them. At the start of this project I didn't have plans or schematics.

The ends of the uprights will get a beating so to prevent splintering or delamination of the wood I made a generous chamfer with the handplane around the ends there.

For finishing I put on two thick coats of grey exterior stain. This was oil based and gives a proper protection from the elements. This ladder will spend most of it's time outside.

So now my ladder was done. Finally I could do some maintenance on the roof of my workshop ;)

I hope you could enjoy this project!