"Primed Pine" Molding

Dec 04, 2004 13 Replies

I am looking at some crown molding, and at HD they have "Primed Pine" for about 2/3 of the unfinished pine. From the back it looks like pieces finger-jointed together, and then milled and primed.



Is this stuff ok to use? Will is hold up, not warp, etc? I imagine that regular pine would be easier to cope joints, but the price difference is hard to ignore.


Glue's as good as the lignin, really. The reason the unfinished's more expensive is that it uses high-grade wood for those who want to go bare.

Yep, and if you're gonna paint it anyways, the primer's already there, so it saves you a step. More time you can use to get on to the next big project!

-AD

Hi Buck,

You may or may not want to consider the MDF crown. I tried it on several projects and liked it a lot - easy to cope too. The price cannot be beat (got mine at HD also).

The final paint is really smooth also.

Just a thought for ya.

Lou

I'll have a look. I looked at MDF baseboards, and decided they'd be hard to patch if they got nicked. But can't imagine nicking crown molding unless I have a wild party or something....

Some is. I purchased some oak veneer ply for an heirloom toybox I was building. All OK until I decided to scroll out 4" diam air holes. The veneer split off in chunks; no, or very little glue. However, no bad experiences with finger jointed wood. Take a piece and see if you can snap it across the joint. That will indicate the strength. Fine if covered with paint.

You might also notice that molding that is not primed may also be comprised of all those spliced pieces of wood. That is known as Paint Grade molding. Molding with out those joints is known as Stain Grade. IMHO these Paint Grade Moldings are straighter and have fewer flaws.

MDF makes great molding material but I would also advise against using it at the floor level. If you have a spill and do not get it up quickly enough the molding will swell.

Peeled ply is an entirely different matter than finger-jointed moldings. I think the thinner ply and the peeling of a ring-porous wood like oak is what did you in.

If you're scroll>

It's okay. I had problems with pine molding bleeding through after a year, even after applying a shellac primer.

I have been using plenty of this stuff -- works great for both crown and base, especially if you are painting it

Question for the day is what type of wood is used --- the stuff I buy from HD is marked as "product of Brazil" -- anybody know if they have "pine" there -- can't imagine that we ship bits-o-pine there only to have them finger jointed and shipped back.......... Inquiring minds.....

Lots of "parana pine" in Brazil, which bears no relation to northern hemisphere pine, but is quite nice stuf to work with.

here's some in action

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If I'm painting molding, I really like PVC.

Barry

It's a big genus. Not to mention that "Brazilian cherry" isn't....

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