Bendy skirting - the saga continues

Skirting can be made as bendy as you like, if its too stiff just use a more flexible design. Eg 2 strips of think bends far easier than 1 of thick. There's also wigglewood, and less likely steam bending.

NT

I've not been following this thread, but has anyone suggested kerfing the rear of the skirting? Alternatively, making skirting sections out of 3 or more layers of thin wood (ply?) glued together in a curved shape.

/I've not been following this thread, but has anyone suggested kerfing the rear of the skirting? Alternatively, making skirting sections out of 3 or more layers of thin wood (ply?) glued together in a curved shape./q

Yes. More than once.......

Jim K

I refer the honourable gentleman to the statement:

"Probably a lesson in when to forget "sunk capital" and write off materials and labour so far and start again. However, I'm still in stubborn and determined mode!"

Prior to purchasing the skirting the general view was that it would probably bend.

It does bend to almost fit - the problem is that the crumbly block wall isn't strong enough to hold that bend with screws and plastic wall plugs when the skirting is pulled in the final few millimetres.

This is the final attempt to get the existing skirting to fit.

Oh, and I've just turned up some No More Nails and some Gripfill. Possible alternatives for larger clearance holes.

Cheers

Dave R

Steam the skirting

Is it possible to screw some brackets into the floor to brace the skirting into place while any fixings cure or even for some weeks until the skirting settles into its new form?

Owain

Maybe lots of cuts partly through the skirting might help it bend? Brian

Yes you can learn a lot from violin makers I'm told. Brian

Well, that was quick and quite a lot of fun!

The resin was squidgy enough to work with the larger holes from the 28mm core drill - although the plugs needed to be centred as they wobbled a bit.

The smaller holes - 25mm SDS drill for 23mm broom handle - used less resin and the plug slipped in nice and slowly with the resin oozing up the sides.

The plugs were 70mm long and the holes roughly 70mm deep into the block, so the plugs sit below the plaster and are more or less fully encased by block.

I used almost two small tubes of the Screwfix resin (the one which doesn't need the special £30 applicator gun). Three squirts per hole seemed to be enough for some to come out around the top of the plug - this also may well bond to the plaster around the hole. No waste as there was space where the plaster had been drilled through to take any extra resin.

I may use 100mm long screws, as the depth is roughly 18mm skirting + 15mm plaster + 70mm plug for fully sunk plugs (although this is on the border line of the tolerances, especially with a counter sunk screw). For those which didn't go fully into the block I'll use the shorter 70mm screws. Unless, of course, I decide to go out and buy a couple more boxes of screws so I have 80mm and 90mm lengths as well. Not really worth skimping at this point.

I am quite taken by this two part resin in a gun - I could have done with this back in the days when car body work used to rot and need filling!

Two part resin seems to be all over the place - the plastic wood seems to be (smells like) brown coloured car body filler. It does make me wonder if you could fasten large pieces of wood together with this gun resin - for example when building a shed.

I threw the last bit away as I can't see any way to stop with a part used tube as the mixing in these cheap tubes starts (as far as I can tell) before the resin gets to the mixer nozzle. You may be able to use the more expensive cartridges with the specialist guns in more than one go - I haven't checked. Although I do wonder why you have two nozzles with each cartridge if you can only use the cartridge once. Nothing on the cartridge about storing part used.

Cheers

Dave R

Previous thread shows temporary fixings for bending/holding - large nails through centre hole of wooden round thing.

This worked quite well as the skirting could be moved to line up and the wood acted as rollers.

Skirting is bent into a bow shape using two clamps, one at each end, pulled together with rope.

It took several days for the MDF to ease into final shape. Bend till it didn't want to go any more, leave for several hours, check and find it would bend some more.

For the suggestions that MDF can be steamed to bend it, I will let someone else try that. IMHO it will just destroy the MDF which is basically fine sawdust and glue. Steaming rehydrates cured wood so that it bends like freshly cut green wood. Something, I think, about making the individual cells and fibres flexible again. MDF does not have a similar structure to wood. In my limited experience damp MDF swells up and crumbles.

Cheers

Dave R

I use a dual cartridge gun with epoxy carts, the mixing is all done in the nozzle so a cart can be used many times.

Yes you can stick wood together with resins, its just more expensive, and s afer where failure could cause injury.

Big carts plus custom gun are much cheaper per ml than the small carts, tho ugh only if you use enough to make it worthwhile of course.

NT

As discussed previously, kerfing may be an option but most descriptions of kerfing talk about making the cuts on the inside of the curve.

Cutting on the outside of the curve would probably make it a little more bendy - bending like (say) 10mm MDF if you had 8mm cuts. Some risk of snapping along the kerf, perhaps.

Having got the skirting to very, very, very nearly fit just by bending it, and finding that everything worked apart from a crumbly wall, then I'm having one last go with this piece of skirting. If this fails I will try some of the alternatives suggested.

Cheers

Dave R

Kerfed skirting appears to be cut half way through, its a lot of cuts to make of course. You can buy prekerfed if the profile matches. Surely 2 thin strips would be much quicker though.

NT

Several times. IMO it's the only way this is ever going to work.

The main issue for me when using multiple strips of wood is matching the profile of the other skirting.

I suppose you could clamp the two pieces together and use a router to cut the profile, then separate them and fix them back precisely as they were clamped, but there is quite a lot of scope for error there.

It is all down to the original profile from the 1930s - when we extended the house we had a special order of skirting to match the existing and I'm trying to maintain continuity.

Which is why we ordered a custom size of MDF skirting off t'Internet and I'm trying to make it fit.

The old skirting around the bay was hardboard on thin wooden strips and a moulding along the top.

Perhaps I should have thought more about why it was done that way (although I don't know if that was original - I am pretty sure the rest of the skirting was from the pencil notes on the back).

Cheers

Dave R

I originally asked about kerfing in my first thread about this - then discovered that the skirting would bend to the curve without kerfing.

If there was a brick inner wall to the bay I would have fitted the bloody thing weeks ago.

If I could have ordered the correct profile in kerfed MDF for a reasonable price then I would have.

As it turned out, standard MDF skirting was the sensible option and an experiment showed that it would bend enough to more or less match the profile of the bay.

So I am trying to pull it in the last little bit without kerfing.

Kerfing is still in reserve as an option - as is 3D printing a bent skirting board!

Cheers

Dave R

Your problem is the tension building up in the bent skirting which is pulling out the wall plugs. Kerfing will reduce that tension.

Richard

/Your problem is the tension building up in the bent skirting which is pulling out the wall plugs. Kerfing will reduce that tension./q

Don't tell him pike! :-)

Jim K

Why can't you just bend it more so it fits completely ?

but that final pull in is proving that the