Loft Ladder-Stairway

Because the warm weather is now finally upon us, I decided to delay the ceiling paneling project. The loft just gets much too stuffy and hot, especially when you're doing physical labor. Instead I decided to work on the loft stairway, which is really more of a ladder, but I'm planning on having rungs that are about 7 inches wide, so it will feel a bit more like a stairway, similar to what  you might find in a boat.

Of course, I want to use wood from the sinker log. I milled a couple of the 2 inch thick slabs into 7 inch wide pieces for the rails of the ladder, and then another that I could use for the steps.

The 8+ foot length was just about right to reach the loft floor. I first positioned one of the rails roughly where I envisioned the stairway, made some marks with a pencil at the angle where I thought it met the floor, and another at the loft end. I then cut the angles, and then re-positioned. This ended up being a bit of an iterative process, since the angle changed slightly once the rail had been cut. Anyway, I finally satisfied myself that the first rail looked pretty good. The second rail was easy, I just used the first as a template, and cut the same pattern on the other. The fit looks pretty good

The steps will probably be more of a challenge, since the rails are slightly warped in places. I took the pieces home, hoping to be able to work on them in the evening after work. Haven't really gotten to it yet, but tomorrow's another day.

Here are a few shots of the work: