Kitchen Cupboards

[Dr Wu]

I made a big mistake and tried to cut cupboard pelmets with a mitre box and the joints are no way good enough, any suggestions as to make them almost invisible?

[Bob Minchin]

You could try a power mitre saw. These enable small adjustments to the angle and minute re-cuts. Still not an easy job. On external corners, small gaps can be closed by rolling a round metal rod (screwdriver?) up and down the joint. Small gaps can also be filled with a filler made from wood glue and sawdust.

Good luck

Bob

[Chris Bacon]

Not necessarily a mistake, but you need a good appropriate tenon saw and a reasonable used mitre box and a bit of technique. If you've already made cuts/joints, then use a filler a shade darker than the (stain of) the timber in question. You could also cut a small piece of timber and shave it to cover the internal angle.

[kitchenman]

When I was fitting I found that as the cornice or light rails was never straight it was better to cut all the joints first then glue them together either on the worktops, cover first or on the floor.

Electric mitre saws are cheap now, about the same price as a length of cornice/pelmet/light rail, get one with as many teeth as possible & tungsten tipped, could cost as much as the saw. Wanna do it right, get the right tool

Then lift them into place & screw up/down.

If there are lots of joints make all externals on worktop/floor then put in place & make internal joints, errors are less visible.

I use superglue for the joints, there are many types, get the right one.

Like riding a bike, easy when you stop falling off.

[Ben Blaukopf]

I had the same problem. I started with the cut from a cheap hand mitresaw which had pre-notched angles that weren't quite right. I took two pieces of scrap wood (call these A and B), and stuck them together (using the mitre-fast glue!) at an exact 45 degree angle. I then clamped the pelmet (previously cut in a mitre box) to board A such that the mitred section just overhung the edge of board B. I then ran a plan along the edge of board B to trim the joint.

I found a piccie at

illustrates a slightly more sophisticated version of what I was doing (piccies 7 and 8 'when trimming mitres...') are the ones you want.

It improved the final finish - it certainly isn't perfect (i.e. I think it looks crap, everyone else thinks it's good). Since my flat took 6 days to sell, I reckon it must be half decent.

Ben