Hello Bob,
Welcome to Sketchucation, and thank-you for your kind words!
If you visited my web site you may have noticed that I have cabmaker32 cabinet making software for system 32 style cabinets. I have done work with nesting parts and outputting DXF files for cabinets. I have a program called CutMasterPro that takes output from cabmaker32 and optimizes it for material utilization.
CutMasterPro only optimizes rectangular shaped parts.
What kind of parts are you using CNC for? Do you have a flat bed or pod style CNC? Do you have a lathe attachment? What size of bed. I'm thinking you might have a 3 axis CNC.
I would guess that you would machine all flat parts such as treads, flat risers, flat stringers, Rail parts such as elbows etc. I would like more information to determine exactly what parts you would want DXF for and also what parts would require nesting.
The software as a first version should be ready within a month or so. All depends how many more features will make it into the first version. At a very minimum I still need to finish off the top nosing assembly ( needs bullnosing like the rest of the treads ). I would like to complete the progressive flare but it doesn't have to make it into the first version. I do have to complete documentation and do more testing. So at a very minimum it would be 3 weeks.
If you are serious about wanting the software - we can arrange something.
When I was building curved stairs I would glue lam treads as a rough over sized blank. Treads for open riser freestanding stairs would have 3 layers of 3/4 fir plywood. For cheaper frameups I would purchase 1" spruce ply as it meets code. I would then draw the treads on the blanks using 1 or more templates, then rought bandsaw the treads a bit oversized and then screw on the template and use a 7 hp shaper with a tersa head and a perfectly sized collar press fit onto a ball bearing. Essentially I would use the shaper to finish size the treads.
I could go on and on - perhaps it is best that we take this off line. You send me a private email from my web site if you wish.
Statistics: Posted by Garry K — Thu Nov 14, 2013 6:15 pm