Just realized I spent 12 years cutting stair stringers the hard way, one step at a time

Emma Young · 2026-10-08T04:05:04.469304+00:00

I was framing a deck rebuild out in Beaverton three weeks back and my helper (19 years old, been at it maybe 8 months) watched me lay out a stringer with my framing square and stair gauges, stepping it down the board like I always have. He goes, why not just use the calculator on your phone and mark it once? I kind of laughed him off, but then he pulled up a stair app, punched in the rise and run, and had the angles and the notch depths in like 15 seconds. I've been doing it the old way since my uncle taught me in his garage back in 2011, and honestly I thought the slow way was the careful way. Took me half a day to cut four stringers that day. Tried his method on the next set and had all four done before lunch, dead on, no creeping error from my square slipping a hair each time. I still keep the square in the truck, it's not about ditching tools, it's that I was wasting hours out of plain habit. Anyone else got an old-school method they finally gave up on? What finally pushed you to switch?

🐿️Pinecone Attack

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Just realized I spent 12 years cutting stair stringers the hard way, one step at a time | Carpenters - Pinecone Attack