Circular stairway and method of making same

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Referring now to FIG.
1, a circular staircase in accordance with the present invention is illustrated partially broken away to reveal certain details of its construction.
As depicted, a plurality of treads 10 are spanned between an outer cylindrical wall 12 and a helical newel formed by cutting the ribbon-shaped structure 14 from a cylindrical pipe or tube depicted by the dashed lines 16.
In fabricating the stairway, one would normally first construct the lower floor or supporting foundation 11, the cylindrical outer wall 12, and the associated second floor superstructure 13, and locate the vertical centerline 15.
He would then install the tube 16 in a position coaxial relative to the centerline 15 and the wall 12, fastening it in place by securing it to the floor 11 with brackets 18 and to the second level joist or floor 20 with suitable brackets 22.
Suitable tread-supporting brackets or platforms 24 would then be attached between the outer surface of the tube 16 and the wall as indicated at 26.
Tube 16 would then be suitably marked to delineate cutlines 30, 32, 34 and 36, and suitable sawing apparatus or cutting torch devices would be used to trim the helical newel 14 from tube 16.
After appropriate clean-up, a handrail 38 would be affixed either to the top edge of newel 14 by means of standoffs or risers 40.
Thereafter, the treads 10 would be affixed to the support structures 26.
At this point, the stairway per se is complete, however if aesthetic considerations dictate, vertical riser panels may be installed, and the underside of the stairway can be boxed in or firred as indicated at 44 to enclose the bottom sides of the treads.
Note that the outer wall 12 need not necessarily be cylindrical; it could be rectangular or of any other configuration.
In a preferred implementation of the present invention, the tube 16 is at least 3'0" in diameter with a wall thickness of 3/8".
With a floor-to-floor height of 10'0" and the lower stair entry at 0