Timber Moulding

[Appelation Controlee]

I've removed a panel from the rear of our front door (original, house built

1901), and want to reinstate the finish to something approximating authentic in style. What I can't find is timber moulding to trim the recessed panels. Architrave moulding is too big, and the trim mouldings available in B&Q & elsewhere locally are too thin, being no more than thin decorative trims. What I want is something around 9mm upstand and 55mm wide (-ish), but there seems to be nothing close to what I want, or even close enough to adapt. Anybody have suggestions?

[A.Lee]

Take a sample to a good wood shop who may be able to get some copied. I did this last year fro some 1930's skirting board. £25 to make the cutter, then £7.50/metre for the board, but it's the only way if you want the same pattern. Alan.

[nightjar]

Good excuse to buy a router. You can make up most profiles with a combination of cutters, or, if it is a common one, Trend may even have a ready made cutter for your profile.

Bignell

[Stuart Noble]

Try one of the larger timber merchants, or a picture framer.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

That sounds extraordinarily wide for such a moulding - I've just put a couple of doors back to how they should be here - Victorian house - after a previous owner had put in glass. And the near exact moulding is in the sheds. Which is approx 9 x 20mm.

As it happens I have a drawing of the door on this machine and have increased the moulding width to 55mm, and it looks very strange - but that's no help to you. ;-)

Architrave is about 55mm wide - but as you say too thick. But it's that thick to allow the various curves to flow.

Could you use strip of the correct width and chamfer one edge then add a 'half round' strip to that? I'd say making a moulding that thin and wide won't be easy, even for a workshop with a spindle moulder.

[Andy Dingley]

Decent timberyard who makes their own mouldings and has a shaper can match anything. Costs depends on whether they have cutters in stock, or if they have to grind something up. If they can do it on standard tooling (nearly everything) then the cost is much the same as any off- the-shelf mouldings. Bit more if you only want a foot of it.

[auctions]

Are you sure that the original would have been that thin? If the marks on the woodwork indicate something as wide as 55mm, it's quite likely that the original was a bolection moulding that stuck out beyond the surface of the door by 10mm or so. You can approximate that by using dado rail and cutting a rebate in it so it laps over the join between the door and the panel. Something like this with a 9mm rebate cut in the back of the thick edge -

[Appelation Controlee]

Thanks for everyone's contributions - most helpful. It looks like it's time to buy that router...

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'd say what you want to do would be near impossible with a hand held one

- unless an expert says otherwise. I think you'd need to mount it in a table so it becomes a sort of spindle moulder. And even then would be tricky with wood this thin.

[Andy Dingley]

Even in a table you're pretty limited in how deep a cut you can take with a router or shaper, compared to a spindle moulder. Even assuming a nice robust 1/2" table router of infinite stiffness (Natural Philosopher made it out of stainless and brass), you still can't swing a large cutter without either tearing or burning.

The problem is the proportionate difference in radius (and thus knife speed), not the rigidity of the spindle. If your moulding needs 1" depth on the knives, then that's 3=D7 or 4=D7 the knife edge speed between inner and outer limits of a small router cutter, whilst it's only 20% difference if the same profile is mounted on the rim of a big shaper head. You can't set a cutter up for a good quality cut if one part of it's running three times as fast as another.

[Appelation Controlee]

Interesting thought re the differential speed. could this be overcome by taking successively deeper "bites"?

[Stuart Noble]

Don't go there. This type of profile is normally machined on 4 sides at once, and doesn't really lend itself to d-i-y

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'd *really* look at whether you could get what you want by using readily available mouldings etc added together. Especially since you don't appear to have experience of using a router.

[Rick Hughes]

most decent joinery companies would be able to make a copy for you.

[Appelation Controlee]

Noted, thanks. :-)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'm not an experienced or skilled woodworker in the terms of many on here, so can only tell things as I've found them - and that is a router works fine on rigid timber which you can mount in a vice etc, but a different matter on thin and flexible stuff.