Scribing torus skirting

Just been doing a load - and this tip might help starters.

Always do the scribed joint first.

Mark the centre of the round bit on the back, so the whole circle is on the scrap part of the wood. Get this bit right. I found a washer of the same diameter with a small hole which made a good centre finder. Note the distance for later use - lock off say a set of calipers or marking gauge.

Drill a 1 1/4" hole with a good holesaw preferably using a pillar drill. Once halfway through or so turn over and do from the sculpted side.

With a square cut piece of scrap line up on the back using a set square and hold firmly. Remove the set square. Mark round the profile with a sharp pencil.

Mark the waste. ;-)

With the set square, continue the line of the sticky out bits down into the waste and cut with a decent tenon saw - doesn't matter how far down you go.

I then use my compound mitre sliding saw to do the main cut - obviously stopping in the waste. Finish that cut with whatever fine hand saw suits - most tenon saws won't be deep enough.

Then remove as much of the waste as possible, and do the final near horizontal cut for that little tang as carefully as possible. Finish with a file.

Any other tips gratefully received. But I'm getting pretty well perfect ones this way.

So my favourite old chippy, George, words ain't needed:-

'If your mitres do not fit. fill them full of putty and s**t.'

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)
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Bloody hell, mate, that's a pfair amount of pfaffing about, ain't it?

That's the way I do it. I'm a bit of an artist with filler (even if I say so myself) and you _really_ can't see the join. Not without your glasses, anyway.

Edward

Reply to
teddysnips

Put a piece of scrap wood underneath and drill from profile side,no need to turn it over then. :-P

Reply to
George

Gone to a lot of trouble there Dave to cut a scribe on the old Taurus moulding.

All you the tools you need are a combination mitre square, crosscut handsaw and coping saw.

Simply cut a 45 degree mitre from the face of the skirting to the back - and then run the old coping saw around the shape of the Taurus mould at the heel of the mitre and slightly undercutting it.

It works perfectly every time - even if the mitre is not exactly 45 degrees - but the cut *must* be straight!

Tanner-'op

Reply to
Tanner-'op

Couldn't use filler as I'm staining them.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Much to my amazement I agree with T-'op.

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

Thank you Dave.

See I did learn something during that five year apprenticeship all those years ago - even if I did spell taurus instead of torus doh! :-( the strain of rebuilding my wife's computer and reinstalling Windows XP is getting to me LOL

Tanner-'op

As a matter of interest as well to those that are not quite sure - when fitting a moulded skirting, all inside angles are scribed and all outside ones are mitred

Reply to
Tanner-'op

Hi, I agree with Tanner. Perhaps at first try mark the back face of the heel of the mitre with pencil shading so you can see where to cut with the coping saw and angle the coping saw cut back away from the mitre to give a bit of leeway. Sometimes a rap helps after if it need a little persuasion. Works well for me. Good luck David

Reply to
gilli

I'm slightly confused about the method. It also sounds like it might need a deal of skill. But I might give it a try. In a couple of places I've screwed the two together - the skirting is all designed to be removed without damage as it's over a wood overlay floor which if something went wrong might have to come up - could you do that with that way?

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Yup, tis the way I was shown how to do it as well - very quick and easy with a bit of practice.

I knocked up some piccies to show the technique a little better:

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(feel free to hack the article about in the normal wiki way!)

Reply to
John Rumm

Dave,

The skill for this really is the control of the coping saw. Take a scrap piece of the torus and using a set square, draw a line down the face of the skirting, now cut down this line at a (rough) 45 degree angle from the front to the back so that when the cut is finished you'll see the outline of the shape of the mould on the face of the skirting on the line that you have just cut.

Now, using the coping saw, cut around the outline of the moulding from the front to the back holding the saw square.

To ensure a better fit, you can slightly undercut this by pointing the saw very slightly in the opposite direction to the mitre (around 1 - 2 degrees at a guess - and more if needed) and then simply push pieces together.

Have a go and you really will find it a lot easier (and quicker) than it sounds here - I promise you that!

Not quite sure what you mean here, but it can be done that way and I would simply *screw* the skirting to the wall with rustless screws using one of the following methods:

1 If painted - simply countersink the screw hole and fill with polyfilla and paint over. If the skirting needs to be removed, just dig out the filler and unscrew and lever the pieces apart with a broad chisel or similar 2 If polished - you can again countersink the hole, but in this case, fill the hole with a wooden pellet made from an offcut and with the grain running in the normal direction (and you can dig these out if removal is necessary). Or, use countersunk brass screw cups (I used the screw cup method in the skirting in my bathroom to enable easy removal to gain access to panels covering various pipes).

The method you use will be determined by how 'picky' you are with the finish.

Tanner-'op

Reply to
Tanner-'op

Superb John, really clear & easy to understand.

I use the 'Makita Jigsaw you made me buy' with a fine curve blade to cut the line, quick & accurate.

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

Ecellent little tutorial John. I'm now a lot wiser on the 'right' way to do this - at least for a right angle. What's the best way of doing it when the angle of join is other than 90 deg ? The reason I ask is that I am just about to start on fitting the skirting to my conservatory (yes, I know it's been built 3 years, but I've been busy, right ?) and it has an octagonal bit up one end, so each 'corner' is 135 deg. Mitred or scribed ?

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily

There's no need to mitre the edge,alls that is needed is a straight edge and you lot are out of date ie get the skirting dont worry about the edge being straight with a set square mark a straight line down the back about an inch&quarter inwards from the edge. Next get a scrap piece and lay it up against the line with the scrap pieces profile pointing inwards,scribe the profile with a pencil. measure the distance between the half moon shape,halve it and put a little pencil nick there then find a auger? bit the size of the halfmoon shape put the skirting on a piece of scrap wood and position drill&bit in the pencil nick and drill right through,all thats need doing now is cutting the rest of the profile with a coping saw and jigsaw no need to profile/file the halfmoon shape as the augerbit made the shape.

Reply to
George

I could have cut the bloody joint while you were still looking for the pencil!

Thats the point of Johns & Tanners method, no marking & measuring.

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

So,best marking and getting a perfect fit than having to use a rasp on the halfmoon shape. Takes 2 minutes to mark out,basically drill a hole right through the wood then use a set square to draw a straight line down the wood over the hole and saw.

Reply to
George

But (if I have understood correctly) in order to implement your method you need:

To be using a profile that includes a half moon shape; An auger of pretty much exactly the same size as the half moon; A drill;

on top the the basic kit.

I know which I will use next time...

Reply to
Rod

3 years - nothing to worry about, no need to rush into these things ;-)

You can scribe these - but you need to cut at an angle away from the face so that the back of the wood does not hit first. Its probably easier to mitre though.

Reply to
John Rumm

The point of the method I described is there is no need of a rasp or a drill or anything other than a coping saw. Its quite easy to follow the line of the profile against the mitres section. Also this works for any profile including ogee, roundover etc.

Its ok, but you still need the coping saw for the remainder of the profile, so I am not sure you have really saved yourself much.

Reply to
John Rumm

No - a tenon saw will do fine. You're not cutting curves.

I had a go at the mitre way of doing it today - and unless I'm doing something wrong you can see that it isn't quite right from the top. So I'm sticking to my way which takes less than 5 minutes anyway.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

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