Stairmaker questions

[Tom Krowka]

Have been working with the stairmaker; have some general questions.
1. The symbol for the stairs is incomplete, unless I goofed up somwhere. I can't get it to show handrails on the plan.
2. Am using the stair with a "carriage" that adds to the width of the stair tread. Only the stair tread itself shows up in plan. This is an opportunity for a big mistake in the drawings. The opening (vertical stair shaft) will be sized to the symbol, but actually there can be additional width on the stair that does not show up on the symbol in plan.
3. Also, can't get the symbol to show dashed line for actual treads above the break line. Any way to do that? Have tried every conceivable combination of scale sensitive symbol, treads on, off, etc. Except the right one, I'm sure.


thanks

[Laura Yanoviak]

Tom wrote:
1. The symbol for the stairs is incomplete, unless I goofed up somwhere. I can't get it to show handrails on the plan.

Handrails do not show in plan (this has been a wish list item going back years).

Tom wrote:
2. Am using the stair with a "carriage" that adds to the width of the stair tread. Only the stair tread itself shows up in plan. This is an opportunity for a big mistake in the drawings. The opening (vertical stair shaft) will be sized to the symbol, but actually there can be additional width on the stair that does not show up on the symbol in plan.

Yes -- you have to be careful here. I usually offset the surrounding walls by the width of the stringer (carriage) so it will appear correctly in plan -- if there are no surrounding walls, you would need to add 2D lines around the perimeter (probably at the same time you are creating your 2D handrails on the plan).

Tom wrote:
3. Also, can't get the symbol to show dashed line for actual treads above the break line. Any way to do that? Have tried every conceivable combination of scale sensitive symbol, treads on, off, etc. Except the right one, I'm sure.

I don't think that you can, but I may be wrong here.

These limitations, and the need for 2D work-arounds makes StairMaker unusable IMHO. After much research, the best tool I have found for the creation of stairs is ArchiStair.