Steel Staircases

[WoodlandDesign]

Does anyone have experience creating construction drawings for a custom steel staircase using CA?  (see attached image)  Something similar to this is desired.

 

I have been ask to do so but feel CA is too limited in it's ability.  I assume one could spend hours creating custom P-solids and eventually a workable plan but don't know if it's worth the effort.  It sounds like maybe the version 13 update may allow more control over this function but right now I don't think it's reasonably attainable. 

 

Thoughts?  Ideas?  Experience?

[robdyck]

I do. I've done it both ways, where I provide the architectural direction for the manufacturer, and where I've provided the working drawings, under the supervision of the project engineer. In my experience, if a manufacturing shop has a engineer on staff or has an established relationship with an engineer, it is best for the manufacturer to provide the shop drawings. This allows them some flexibility with the spec. of various parts based on their experience and material availability. Much simpler for you to review and approve (if that is part of your process) the shop drawings than to attempt that yourself.

Chief can do a great job of modelling the stairs, but yes, you may need to make several parts yourself. That particular example would be quite simple and very quick to model as well as to provide the necessary architectural info required for a manufacturer to provide an estimate or quote, and then shop drawings.

[Joe_Carrick]

There are Steel Channels, etc in one of the Libraries.  But detailing Stairs (of any type) in Chief is not easy.  It's almost better to start with a Section and create a "CAD Detail from View".  Then just use the CAD Tools (Lines, etc) to refine the Detail(s).

 

[Alaskan_Son]

That particular example looks relatively easy.  I doubt I would use the stair tool at all though.  I’d probably model the entire thing with solids if it was for fabrication drawings.  

[WoodlandDesign]

Thanks all for your input.

It seems comments are mixed regarding Chief's ability to produce this project as I suspected they might be. 

[DzinEye]

It's hard to provide a one-size-fits-all product (Chief), nor a one size fits all answer for how to use the tools Chief gives us.
If you wanted to be able to show a rendered 3D view of exactly how that stair would look, then I think you'd be having to do what Michael suggests....but if you just wanted give the suggestion of how it would look, (open risers, floating treads, double steel stringers, cable rails) you could very quickly make that happen with the stair tools.  The first stair below took less than a minute.  Selecting 'No stringers' and instead making polyline solid stringers in a section view as seen in the second shot took an extra 2 minutes.

For some users the goal is to have every single nuance modeled in 3D so that any given building section or zoomed in shot will provide a ready detail.   In my mind, that costs 10x the time investment than to just draw a 2D detail and refer to it as needed in the plan.   Personally I think Robert had the right idea with have the stair mfr. detail the shop drawings, and you just providing the client a reasonble expression in 3D, and the mfr. shop a cad detail and/or inspiration photo as you did above.

[ACADuser]

This is a Beach house I did but did not get too detailed on the stair.