Okay, I can't cope and I've been trying to put miters in my crown mo(u)ldings. In the corners where the angle is REALLY 90 degrees, the fit is great (using my Delta combination miter set at the proper angles) but where there are imperfections, it ain't so nice. Filler sucks but I've had to use some. So, I've tried coping with a coping saw and a band saw but it never comes out to be a nice tight fit. Anybody use a different method? Any recommendations... aside from telling me to learn to cope? Practice, practice, practice???
Maybe not your problem here, but after a while having trouble with this, I discovered that different pieces of the same molding profile from the lumberyard sometimes had slightly different profiles. This was not helpful in getting a good fit. Just something to check.
a fine tooth narrow blade all I have to do is cut the miter, pencil line to edge to make it stand out and cut away. The Collins foot lets me get all the angles with no problem.
You got it right...practice makes perfect. If this is the first time you are attempting to cope corners, then take a couple hours just to practice. The extra few bucks spent on 8' of molding for practice will pay off nicely and this learned skill will stay with you. Craig Savage's book, "Trim Carpentry" is a good selection.
I have has good success using a Dremel tool with the small sanding drums. The drums come in 1/2" and 3/8" or 1/4" diameter. Cut the angle on the miter saw as you would normally would but instead of using the coping saw use the Dremel tool. Use the larger sanding drum to "hog out" the bulk of the material. Clean up with the small drum for a perfect joint. With very little practice, you can achieve fast and perfect joints.
when coping crown you must back bevel the cuts.if you stand it on a bench and look at it as it wil;l go up you will see what i mean. i use a jigsaw with a down cutting blade but this is not for the faint of heart! down cutting blades eliminate tearout on the face of the crown molding but they are difficult to master. the jig saw tends to want to jump a lot. i lay the plate on the miter and this gives all the back cut that i need. hope this helps. oh! and practice practice practice!!! lol.
After you get as close as you can with your coping saw, use a knife with a very sharp, very thin blade to shave away the inside of the joint. I use a homemade tool made from the last three inches of a flexible fillet knife. I sharpen it with a few passes on a ceramic rod and keep it sharp enough to split a hair when it's dragged across the blade at an acute angle. Make yourself a small jig with a sample of your corner moulding attached as it would be on your ceiling so you can check for fit very quickly. With just a very small amount of practice, you can shave the wood down to a few hundredths of an inch and get a joint so tight you won't see light passing through the other side. A few months ago I put painted mouldings in my living room. I painted the mouldings, mounted them, and coped the appropriate corners. I was able to shave joint right down to to the backside if the paint. The fit was excellent, and looked like I had filled the joint with putty then sculpted it and painted it.
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-linux_lad
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I cut a 45 degree angle into the moulding to expose the profile and the try to cope out the profile with the coping saw. I angle it back so as to remove some of the back-stock. Just can't seem to get it to fit. The use of a Dremel with the sanding drum sounds make it might help finish it off and I did get a good price on eBay on a VS scroll saw. So, I'll be experimenting and practicing.
I'm redoing the wood trim in my house to sell the sucker before I retire.... damn soon, I hope. I have been spending on tools and books like a crazy man so I'll have something to do that I can actually enjoy doing when the day gets here. When I was younger, I wasn't interested in woodworking but now it seems the only thing I am interested in.
In between cutting a 45-degree angle and trying to cope the profile, add one more step. It's almost trivial; but it made all the difference in the world for me:
Take a #2 pencil, and (using the /side/ of the point, highlight the profile edge to get a very thin black line.
Clamp a support board in your vise (or clamp it to the front edge of your bench if you dont have a vise) and hold the molding firmly in place on top of that with your non-dominant hand.
/Now/ cut so that the kerf is in the waste and just kisses that line. Take your time and use the saw slowly and gently; and keep the saw blade as close to perpendicular to the back of the molding as you can.
You should have better results than ever before. Speed will come with practice - what you're after here is gentle precision. When your cut is complete, take a moment to look at how well you were able to follow that edge, then fit the coped end to its mate and check for quality of fit.
Now do any fine tuning you want with a Dremel, although it's my guess that you probably won't need to. (-:
If it came out well, ask yourself: "Why? what changed?" [hint: No matter what you might think, it wasn't just the pencil line!]
It can be really satisfying. The danger lies in doing such a good job that you don't want to sell the house... (-:
Yeah, it will fit Jay, and it will fit perfectly, if the walls are perfectly perpendicular to one another. Most walls are not. Backcutting slightly is a simple enough way to allow for any error in the wall construction.
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