gaps in sleeper steps

[carlbhoy]

hi guys, I'm in the process of building some outdoor steps with railway sleepers, the trouble is with them being as they are, unfortunately they are leaving big gaps, showing the hardcore underneath them, does anyone have any ideas as to how to hide these gaps, I was thinking of using that polyurethane foam and then cutting it back to shape, and then applying a dark wood exterior paint, but then can you paint that stuff? or does anyone have any other ideas?

 

[r896neo]

These will be a death trap in a few months when wet and slimey. One sleeper as an edge for a step isn't great but a flight of them is downright dangerous. If your not fully committed to the idea I would reconsider.

How have you laid them? Normally there would be a small overlap of say an inch to hide this sort of problem. So if the sleepers are 150mm thick each step would be 125mm.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Why didn't you figure this out after laying the first step and the problem first materialised? Bonkers.

 

[Tigercubrider]

Never done it but to me you are using too few sleepers to do it.

Two sleepers deep for the step, with the next one starting on top of the rearmost one, with a decent distance back to front

Also joining the steps end to end underneath, even if it means cutting the ends square would help.

You could cross cut some grooves or fix some mesh to add grip