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Discussion Forum

3-way coped joint

DanH | Posted in Construction Techniques on December 23, 2005 02:50am

Any good tricks for making a joint between three pieces of identical cove/quarter-round where you have, for instance, two horizontal pieces meeting in the corner and a vertical piece running up the corner?

My standard approach is to cope the first two and then double-cope the third, but it’s hard to get the copes right on the third piece.


If ignorance is bliss why aren’t more people happy?
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  1. RW | Dec 23, 2005 02:59am | #1

    If they're identical, as in 5/8 by 5/8 as opposed to 1/2 x 5/8, you can scribe a square line on the back of the piece to double cope and use that as a reference for the short point of the cut. You should end up with a near perfect double 45 which you can finish with a coping saw. It's a little counter intuitive since most people always use the tick mark to indicate the long point.

    "If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." - Mark Twain

  2. User avater
    Luka | Dec 23, 2005 03:22am | #2

    I have done this on countertops. The corner ends up looking pretty cool.

    What I do is easiest if the opposite end of all three is not coped as well. (Dead-ended" on the other end.) I HAVE done it with a mess of complex copes all over the place, but I think I spent ten times as much time on it as if they were all dead-ended. LOTS of scratching the head and being very careful.

    With dead-ends, you make your copes, sit them in the corner, and mark the opposite ends for flush. That measurement will not be as obvious as it may seem. With a 3 corner cope, the pieces do not all slide right into the corner.

    I cut the 45 twice, on all 3 pieces. As was already said, you have to set a reference point, to keep the second cope square to the first one. The long end of the cope gets lost when you do the second, opposite cope.

    When put in a square corner, it looks almost impossible to have been done. Became a kind of trademark for me for a while.


    Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength. ~~ Eric Hoffer

    1. DonCanDo | Dec 23, 2005 03:56am | #3

      I can't quite envision it.  Any Pictures?

      1. calvin | Dec 23, 2005 04:52am | #4

        U 2 Don?   Was like Greek to me..............ooops, sorry dino.A great place for Information, Comraderie, and a sucker punch.

        Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.

        Quittin' Time

         

      2. User avater
        Luka | Dec 23, 2005 06:17am | #5

        None. Sorry.I am at least 70 miles from the last one I did. Basically when the double cope is cut, you have a stick of quarter round with a centered point on the end of it. Shove all three points into the corner, and all the copes meet up.The simplest way to do it is to use to square a mark across both large flats on the back. Then continue that mark to the front/top small flats.Use those two marks as the short cheek sides of the cope cuts. The long side will disappear.If you cut three pieces this way, and shove them into a square corner, the copes will all meet.I will attach a drawing I just did to try to illustrate this.
        Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength. ~~ Eric Hoffer

        1. DanH | Dec 23, 2005 07:19am | #6

          So do you do miters or copes?
          If ignorance is bliss why aren't more people

          happy?

          1. User avater
            Luka | Dec 23, 2005 08:49am | #7

            This would be miters.Guess I shouldn't mix the nomenclature.I thought of that when I was writing and was drawing the pic, but I was too lazy to fix the post. I figured anyone who has done trim and was reading, would easily figure it out for themselves.
            Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength. ~~ Eric Hoffer

          2. DanH | Dec 23, 2005 08:50am | #8

            So you just miter all pieces on a 3-way, vs doing copes?
            If ignorance is bliss why aren't more people

            happy?

          3. User avater
            Luka | Dec 23, 2005 09:01am | #9

            That's the way I did them, yes.That doesn't mean that I never coped a bit to fudge an out of square corner. But I wouldn't really consider eating the back of the miter away just a bit in whatever spot was needed... to be actually "coping" would you ?99% of the corners I did, I had no problem with. The plain miters worked just fine.Have you done it yourself ?If so, what is your method ? Was I wasting time or something ?

            Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength. ~~ Eric Hoffer

          4. DanH | Dec 23, 2005 04:45pm | #10

            I've only done it a few times. Coped the first two together in the conventional fashion, then double-coped the third. When you're done with the double-coping, though, you've got quite a spear, with a sharp, weak point, and the fit generally takes some fudging.And the thin plastic trim is a real PITA to cope.
            If ignorance is bliss why aren't more people

            happy?

          5. User avater
            Luka | Dec 23, 2005 09:16pm | #11

            Ah yes. I actually did it that way the very first time.The second time I thought of just doing a double miter on every piece and wondered whether it would work or not. It was worth a try.After all the very careful measuring, marking, scratching of my bu... er I mean head... It actually worked, and looked better than my first attempt.One small detail... Reference "cope" in here. The one thing I did consistantly have to do, is to carefully cope backward on the very tips of those double miters. You have to leave the point that shows. But the real point goes farther than that, behind what shows. Doing this lets the pieces be fitted into a corner that is not "sharp". Or in other words, just about every corner there is. LOL On a countertop the countertop to walls part of that corner is usually sharp. But the drywall wall to wall part of the corner is a bit rounded. In some corners all three planes are rounded.Here, I'll try to draw another pic to describe what point I mean...Ok, this isn't the best. I tried to show what the end of that piece of trim would really look like face-on to the point.The green lines show where the point can be coped back just a bit so that all 3 pieces will slide into the corner. The grey lines are the parts of the miter that will still meet up, and form your miters.It's actully pretty simple as long as you are careful with your measurements and markings. It takes a lot more to describe the process than to just do it.
            Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength. ~~ Eric Hoffer

          6. User avater
            JDRHI | Dec 23, 2005 09:53pm | #12

            I figured anyone who has done trim and was reading, would easily figure it out for themselves.

            What you mean to say, is that you ####-u-med.

            I`ve done it the way you`ve described. I agree. Better (stronger) finished product.

            J. D. Reynolds

            Home Improvements

          7. User avater
            Luka | Dec 24, 2005 03:32am | #15

            You bet I did.I got no excuse, either.30 lashes with a wet noodle er sometin' I guess.Yes, when double mitered, and care is given to keeping the two miters dead-on-even with each other on the same stick... The corner gets filled with a very strong joint.No thin pieces. Nothing needs glued down, etc.
            Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength. ~~ Eric Hoffer

          8. User avater
            JDRHI | Dec 24, 2005 06:25am | #16

            Wow.....they canned the azz in my assumed!

            Whodda thunk?

            J. D. Reynolds

            Home Improvements

        2. DonCanDo | Dec 24, 2005 01:05am | #13

          OK. I got it.  3 pictures attached.  The first one (miter_and_half_cope) is sort of what I thought you meant.  The 2 "bottom" pieces are mitered twice and then each is half-coped.  The vertical piece has no cuts.  It doesn't look very good.

          Then, the lightbulb went off.  Pictures 2 and 3 show the corner exploded and assembled.  It still doesn't look very good, but that's only because I didn't try very hard to make each side of the miter exactly the same.  With a little tweaking, I'm sure that it would be a very good-looking joint.

          BTW, I did this with 1/2" quarter round.  It would be easier with larger molding.

          So, thanks for the lesson.

          -Don

          1. User avater
            Luka | Dec 24, 2005 03:20am | #14

            Ah. Yes. Very cool.And you are using quarter round. I used cove. Basically the mirror image of what you are using. Concave instead of the convex that you used.Now you guys have me wishing I could get to the store and get the cove I used, and mock up a corner. LOL
            Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength. ~~ Eric Hoffer

            Edited 12/23/2005 7:33 pm by Luka

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