How-To
Duct Tape Keeps Miters Together
Line up the mitered corners of the trim in out-of-square corners
I recently had to install some base trim on old, out-of-square porch columns. I couldn’t just slap the molding against the four sides of the column and nail them, because the twisted column meant the corners wouldn’t align. Instead, I lined up the mitered corners of the trim pieces, making sure the miters were flush, and then I taped the joints with duct tape. I used my brad nailer with stainless-steel brads to nail through the duct tape to secure the trim. Once I removed the tape, I finished up with a dose of Big Stretch caulk.
—Steve Beese, Winston-Salem, N.C.
Drawings: Charles Miller
Thanks for the tip, if Duct tape is not your style, cyanoacrylate (or CA in shorthand) is the fastest setting of all adhesives. A variety of formulations exist from ultra-thin to thick gels, and with setting times that vary from just one or two seconds to over a minute. With an accelerator it is a unbeatable combination and the equal of the all mighty duct tape. IMO
Keep it up. Good work!
Excellent work you do here. Keep it up!