Overkill Switchback Staircase build

welcome everyone today in this video i build a switchback staircase so we're going to have some serious fun today we're going to be looking at torch cutting welding fabrication steel erecting bolt connections and even washers that squirt so as you guys know we're not in my machine shop today as you can tell my lease is up at the old building this is great opportunity to move into a new location and have a little bit more creative freedom the project that we're going to be working on is building a staircase i have already built a mezzanine in this shop so we need to get some stairs to get to the top floor so i've decided to construct this mezzanine out of i-beams instead of wood i have joists on three foot centers and then i have i-beams that stand every 12 feet or so and i constructed this in about three days we have a floor height of 13 feet and we have a length of 125 and a width is 25 feet the general idea is i want to enter the staircase from the machine shop side travel up the flight of stairs hit a landing make a u-turn go up to the top of the mezzanine and be exiting the staircase to the machine shop so we need to remove a section of these three joists in order to support them we need to have an i-beam that supports the ends of the tails so as you can see we need to build some stairs up here i'd like to share that experience with you so let's get to work i need to locate the hole in the floor that i want to cut so i'm starting out by snapping some wall lines to use as reference points and gathering the information i need to cut the iron these are the little bits of leftover iron that i have from building the mezzadine so i'm going to utilize them to the fullest potential here so this is a w12 by 22 beam what that means is that it measures 12 inches from flange to flange and then if you were to take a section that measures one foot long it's going to weigh 22 pounds this beam is 25 feet long in length weighing around 550 pounds in my application wall-to-wall tight is going to be 24 foot five i need to subtract one inch from that measurement i need room for weld bead half an inch on one side of weld bead and a half of an inch on the other gives me some clearance for the beam to fit past it what we want to do is get an inch and a half back from there and give myself the three holes i'm going to be using a hogan mag drill to punch these holes and it uses an annular cutter which is basically kind of like a little hole saw but it has carbide tips and it's going to punch a perfect little hole through the web of this flange so in order to get this beam chopped up i'm going to be using the oxygen acetylene cutting torch now a quick tip when you're using a cutting torch on a concrete floor is to put some sort of protector on the concrete because the sparks slag or droppings of metal will actually chip and damage the floor this is going to be my weapon of choice because it's quick simple and fast and easy to chop up these beams and since i have no mechanical bands on this facility this is gonna be the best tool for the job i like to start on the flanges work my way top to bottom on each side and then come back and connect the two cuts cutting across the web so now the fun part the beam's ready to go and to be installed i want to put the beam on top of these pallets and then i'm going to hang the beam first with some welds off the existing joist and then i'll come back in and stand the columns up to that the welder i'm using is a lincoln sa200 pipeliner with eighth inch 7018 lincoln excalibur and it's actually my preferred method of welding i like it because it's reliable simple and it always works i saw that the i-beam had a pretty good curve in it which is pretty typical of i-beams so in order to straighten it out hooked a ratchet strap to one end of it and gave it a nice good tug so as you can see we're missing something we need to make a column that's going to hook to the end of the beam and touch the floor and support the whole load and what we're going to be using is what i call a knife plate now this is going to provide a little bit of flexibility to be able to plumb the column up you can take your existing beam just set a depth stop and now you can transfer that to the beam and then what we're going to do is we're going to end up welding it to the flange just like that with 3 16 welding rod i'm going to do one pass on each side i always prefer to weld in the flat position so i like to position the beam on a 45 that way i get a nice big fillet weld when attaching the knife plate to the column so now that i have the knife plate on the top welded we need to work on the bottom and what we're going to do to fasten it to the floor so i'm using this cool little laser major to get an accurate reading for the column length so i need to cut this beam to length let me show you a cool trick on how you can cut thin plate with a big cutting torch and it's going to start by having it nice and square and then i'm just going to keep the torch in the same position i'm just going to roll it it cuts really fast you don't have to wait so long so this is just a simple end cap that we're going to weld on to the base and that's going to keep it nice slim profile to be able to fit inside the wall so let's weld it on and get this baby installed so i'm choosing to bolt the column and the beam together for simple erecting purposes because it's fast i know that it's strong i know it's repeatable and that i can do all the welding on the ground which makes it really convenient the location of these columns need to be perfect for one they're going to be living inside a framed wall so that the drywall and framing can hide them but also we're going to be hanging a platform off of them now the bolts that i'm choosing to use are an a325 grade 5 engineered fastener we can track the information about it all the way down to the foundry now the problem with them is that they need to be torqued around 350 foot-pounds pretty hard to get some leverage on them too and in my case i used an impact wrench to get them torqued you can also use an actual torque wrench or there's some other products so the other solution is to use a tc bolt this is a pretty neat fastener because it has a little spline on the end that uses a special gun that used to apply the torque and then the gun snaps off this little spline making a visual representation that the bolt has been torqued properly so that's one option a little bit more money but if your job requires it well then this is a perfect solution for you another alternative is to still use the a325 bolt but use what we call a squirter washer now this washer will eject some fluid once it gets torqued to the proper setting making a visual identification mark on the beam or column that has been torqued properly this is what inspectors want to see is this goo spread all over the place which makes it pretty convenient the downside is they're pretty expensive around three dollars a piece they're a little bit more money now that the column is bolted to the floor and the girder up above is bolted in properly i feel comfortable cutting off the joists and making a hole in the floor so i prefer to do all the measuring and layout on the concrete floor i do this just by snapping some lines and then i take a nice bright green laser and i can transfer these lines up into the roof and that will give me a nice visual line where i need to cut the ends of the beams off i'm taking great care and cutting these beams in one piece because i'd like to recycle this material for the horses a little bit later on for the stairs cutting the hole in the floor really isn't a big deal yes it would have been easier to build this when i was building the mezzadine originally but this is still a pretty good option so there are now three little tails of joists hanging out there dangling into nothing and i want to be able to tie those and support them so i'm going to be cutting some angle iron and attaching them to the adjacent beams on the sides it's really cold outside so having this larger tip gives me a lot of preheat really fast and i can almost cut just as fast with this than i can advance off i like to position my material to where i don't have to manipulate it too much and in this case i have both legs pointed down this allows me just to make two quick swipes without having to move or roll the material i'm choosing to use angle iron instead of a flat piece of plate steel for the knife plate because it's going to gusset and strengthen the web of this joist so i'm going to be attaching the beam perpendicular to the joist and the proper technique to do this because they want to share the same space is to cope one of them and that's removing a little piece of the two flanges that could interfere with each other on one of the cuts i did correctly with a nice clean smooth radii on the inside corner of the cope on the other side i didn't do so hot i actually have an overcut condition from the torch where the kerf penetrated the corner this is going to leave a stress fracture and you don't want that i'm going to be addressing this by welding it and blending it smooth when i have it up in the air so it eliminate any chances of this cracking or fatiguing in that area i'm sure you've noticed by now the cutting torch in the background and yes these wheels are awesome and they're from a tank so it's now time to make the landing for the switchback staircase and i'm going to be repurposing the i-beams that we pulled out of the mezzanine floor for this so this landing is going to be ten feet long and about four and a half feet wide they look like they just came out of a richard simmons aerobics class these things are warped and bent all over the place so it's pretty hard to get an accurate measurement what really matters to me is that the top flange of these beams are all coplanar with each other and have no twist to them so i'm using the monster square to accomplish that i really like where i'm going with the platform here i think it's going to turn out really nice but the next step we got to do is get it in the air make some posts so we can install it so let's do that next so one of my design criterias for this platform is to be able to have enough clearance to walk or put equipment underneath it so i'm targeting a height of seven foot six that's going to give me adequate clearance do whatever i want and also not have any posts in the way so one corner of the platform is going to get a hanging post that way i don't have any tripping hazards on the floor three of the other posts are going to be buried inside walls so those really don't matter too much this platform is a key component to the installation of these stairs i'm taking extra precaution to make sure it's at the correct height it's level and true because when i go to put the horses in if anything's wrong with this platform nothing else will line up the next step is to install and manufacture this upper stair horse it's going to be by far the most challenging not only in this fabrication and layout but the installation also for one i'm by myself so in order to accomplish this i attach a choker to the midpoint of this beam this is going to allow me flexibility and control and be able to pivot the beam when i go to install it and it also helps by getting it in between two pieces that could get wedged so one of the cool design features that i liked about the switchback design is that when you get to the top of the stairs that you are invited by seeing this big open space and being able to see all the tools and equipment and all the projects that are going down on the shop floor i've decided to use a little bit unique different style on how to manufacture the stairs so i've chosen to break shape to form the step now these are going to stack on top of each other and just really make some stairs rather quickly and the way they get welded together is going to add to the overall strength and this is kind of not a really typical style of stair but i think this is going to work well for my application another design criteria that i have is these stairs are actually going to be blocking some sound that's going to be coming out of the mechanical room so with any brake shape they're never going to be exactly perfect and the method i'm using to attach this is that i'm tacking the first stair placing the second one on top of it and the stair underneath has a nice good supporting rib that it gets welded to i find that you can push or pull the stair tread and manipulate your stair just a little bit by using a bessie clamp to meet your marks and then you give it a nice good weld and then you just repeat the process over and over and over again now this is a unique design where the landing is the last step this actually saves me 11 to 12 inches of the overall run of the stairs i'm really happy the way these stairs are coming together but as you can see we need to put some platform material in here so let's do that next i'd like to add some 3x3 tubing that i used from the post to be able to add some supports for the floor and i'm just making a nice cope here that way the top flange and the top of this tube are co-linear with each other this is going to allow me a nice flat surface so when we put the boards on top it's going to have a nice clean look so the wood of choice for this landing is going to be this apatong lumber its original design is for trailer decking shipping container floors it has a ship lap construction and measures about seven inches wide and you can get them up to about 20 feet in length the board measures about an inch and a thick it's extremely durable and tough stuff i wanted to add texture to the floor so i staggered step and had this random pattern i really like this look this is going to be the decking on top of the mezzanine too so i want it to match i tried a couple different types of screws one was a self-tapping screw where it needed no pilot hole but that just led to lots of smoke and broken self drilling tips so it really didn't work very well the best method of attachment was to drill a seven thirty seconds pilot hole and then to use the quarter twenty self tapping screw to fasten down and now i have a lifelong permanent connection i really wanted to stay in the lumber that way it's going to help protect it from the elements and they make this special stuff for apatong specifically and i think it looks beautiful when it's applied well i really enjoy how the stairs have come together it's pretty fun to take a cad model and design and actually bring it to real life and have something we can actually stand on thanks for watching me build the stairs now that i'm one step closer to getting moved into this new facility and i'll catch you guys on the next one one step closer i'm 18 steps closer to getting this building ready to move in

Channel: Fireball Tool

Views: 769,515

Rating: 4.9483676 out of 5

Keywords: fireball, tool, Fireball tool, Welding, stairs, switchback stairs, torch cutting, arc welding, a325 bolts, iron working, new fireball shop, fireball shop, machine shop upgrades, linde forklift, steel stairs, staircase, knife plate, mezzanine build, mezzanine floor, mezzanine, apitong, apitong wood, trailer deaking, wood floor, shop floor, squirting washer, tc bolt, erection bolts, building stairs

Id: 5BMQE5XnKww

Length: 13min 46sec (826 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 31 2021