biscuit join miters on window casing?
Megunticook
| Posted in Construction Techniques on
Hi,
Just wondered if any of you finish carpenters are using a biscuit joint to secure mitered corners on interior window casing.
FBH March ’01 had an article by Jim Blodgett on trimming windows, and he just glued the joints and nailed with 3d finish nails. My impression is that’s typical. But a contractor I know says if you don’t biscuit them the joint will eventually move on you.
On this particular job I’m using 1×4 white pine which will be finished with a clear linseed-oil based finish–no painting.
Thanks,
Ed
Replies
Sounds like alot of work on traditional 2-1/4 casing. On your particulat trim I don't see why not.
ED, On something that wide, I do it. On butts or mitres. Takes time, but have seen none fail. I nail it to the jambs, use spring clamps on the mitres till the glue dries, nail it off to the wall later. Best of luck.
__________________________________________
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
Ah, so with a three and a half inch wide piece of wood, you're going to get a lot more movement than with the standard casing. So I take it you don't biscuit the smaller stuff? Just curious. . .sounds like I should plan on doing the biscuit.
So what would you say to a trimmer that on Andersen windows just nails the casing to the framing?
No brads to the jamb.
No cross nail at the miter
No caulk on the sill that says "caulk here"
And no glue in the miter
I'd say "don't touch my windows, pal."
Scarey but it happens more then you'd would imagine. I loose jobs to these hacks and NO ONE CARES.
If you were arrested for being a quality builder would there be enough evidence to convict you?
Edited 2/11/2003 8:27:58 PM ET by GEOB21
Edited 2/11/2003 8:29:23 PM ET by GEOB21
We always biscuit any miters that aren't painted. Costs a little more, takes a little longer, but them biscuits keep things together... EliphIno!
I'm trying Kreg-screwing the casings together on my current job. Triple windows, 1x5 flat pine, butt joints, 1x6 mulls between windows. Gonna kreg and glue it all together then nail it up. I find there is a little too much slop in buiscuits, but of course they are better than nothing.
steve
Seems like the Kregs would be more work. First you have to clamp/drill, (glue?) then screw, then fill or plug, then sand, then finish? With Biscuits: cut first slot, sut second slot, glue, insert biscuit. I guess my gripe with the kreg method is that i have to fill the holes, and I pretty much dislike anything that requires extra "repairing" of the wood.
Did I just make any sense? Think I'm getting tired
Later.Matty Little Sawhhorse Construction, LLC -- Building, Remodeling, and Repairs. Bayfield, WI
Though I have not tried the Kreg jig, it seems to me, that if you put the pocket screws into the back of the casing there would be no need to fill the holes as they would not be seen.
We typically use biscuits and glue then cross nail the miters and set the whole thing as a unit.TCW Specialists in Custom Remodeling.
I think the Kreg method is faster better and easier on the 1 X 4 trim. I just bought one this year when visiting my daughter and son-in-law up in Madison Wi. He was raving about it up there. We used it on hickory 1 X 4 trim and it worked great! (for hard wood it has fine thread screws in the kit, for soft, coarse).
With the biscuits you have to clamp til dry. Not the easiest on a miter.
I really like my Kreg jig. My doweling jib is not self-centering, so I mess around a lot with alignment on it. The kreg is quick and my favorite use is toenailing the odd stud in, I don't do enough production framing to justify a framing nailer and when I need precise alignment in a wall, the pocket - screwed stud doesn't creep like a toe-nailed one with 16d's.
remodeler
Would love a biscuit jointer. been watching for a reman one for quite a while, I will not give pc or dewalt $200 for that device.
remodeler, I have not used the biscuit joiner like I thought. If I had it to do over again I would still have the money. I'm not happy with the slop in the Freud that I got. The system does have its place, but it's a much lower place than I thought for me.
have a pc buiscuit joiner, been a trim guy, cabinet guy for 15 yrs or more, cant beleive i ever did without it, especially with prefinished cabinent trim
works wonders for casing miters, door jamb/header joints even scarf joints in baseboard
steve
steve, I think I NEED to learn to use mine more.
fonzie: since i got my pc bicuit joiner, ive used for countless things! scarf joints in baseboard, crown mold, wherever you have a joint, its awonderful tool. even used it to join prefinished molding for kitchen cabinets
trickiest joint i ever had to make? how about a butt joint in 6 inch wide prefinished gloss white crown molding? a biscuit joiner made it posible
Did you buy one of those fancy biscuit glue squirters?
Try the reconditioned tools offered by the Tool Crib. Some pretty good deals on tools. New warranty.
I haven't had much luck assembling casings before installing them. Seems like the wall is never perfectly flat and the joints that looked great on the table get twisted and open up when nailed to the wall.
Biscuits and pocket screws do seem like an improvement over just nails and glue, though. I'll have to give this some thought.
I'll Kreg jig anything I can. We use it whenever we have to put window jambs, or jamb extensions together. I'm gonna check out using it for casing... EliphIno!
once your set up with the kreig, ( like on a table near your miter saw). the joints go together sooooo easy, need a scarf joint, do it on the table and you now have a 20' piece of base, need to re enforce some miter , cut them then kreig them.
the reason it is faster than the BJ is that you only have to make one cut and you only have to be so particular about placement.
my vote is for kreig.
James
I'm for the Kreg, too.
We did a bunch of 1x4 (more or less) casing, set up a coated MDF table near the saw, a couple of jigs for square, it goes really fast. The joints stay tight, easy to install, I doubt I'd do it any other way unless something really unusual happened.
DRC
jim, my son-in-law up in Madison showed me what several have caught on to up there. They are using prefinished pine and oak casing.
They cut the window or door casing by measurement on the short point of the miter. They cut it just a TOUCH less than the 45 deg. (this setting is a important part of this technique) They clamp it down TIGHT (using something like a kreg jig or 8 SP vise grip with a shim pad) on a FLAT surface. Then they drill it with a profile bit, glue, screw it together (screw comes down from the top), and set the results aside to dry.
The screw is about a 2 1/4 torx. It is important that the screw is at a right angle to the miter or it will shift the miter. They really pull the joint tight.
After the screw & glue they shoot out on the corner with about a 1 1/4 brad.
Then they shoot them on. The slight angle change has the effect of pulling the long point of the miter tight, and the jamb side of the trim in.
I tried it and ended up using my doweling jig with a reducing sleeve for centering a #40 drill bit as a pilot hole. I had to use separate drills for the screw shoulder and head to get the results I wanted. Then I liked it.
It sounds involved, and it is until you are set up. Then you produce tight miters that won't open up without worrying about slight variations in jamb corners. There is enough flex in the trim to align it.
Can you post some step by step photos?
jim, we aren't trimming right now, but when we do I'll try to do that. It is a hard thing to describe in such a way you'd take the time to try. I admit I wasn't too interested (from past such attempts) but when he demonstrated I was motivated enough to get through the set up and trial and error.
The problem I was having at first was not having the right shank hole. The screw was "threadlocking" and not pulling the miter up tight. I've got to admit miters have been a headache over the years. I can remember the last (hand driven) nail pulling a gap. Also there is the problem of gapping over time. This system helps with the measuring problem and the gapping problem. There will be no separating. There IS a hole on the top of the trim to either be filled or lived with. The glue is a potential problem if staining later.
I'll aim to get pics when we trim next.
Musta nailed that old andersen double hung mechanism "within 7", so there'll be no more of that.
Feeling lucky I guess.
Man are you fast.
What do you do after lunch?
__________________________________________
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
Edited 2/11/2003 9:18:01 PM ET by calvin
Anybody still use dowels?
I have biscuit jointer but a lot of times I find it more efficient to just get my self centering dowel jig out and drill a few holes and glue it up?
Is there a disadvantage to dowels that I don't know of?View Image
The rap I've heard is they're great for alignment, not so great for strength because too much of the surface area of the holes is end grain.
I don't know about Blodgett, but nobody's ever paid me enough to do that much diddling around with casing. Get the brad nailing gun out, put some glue on the joints, and get out of the house. I use DF casing on all my windows, and it is well dried by the time it gets to me. This is a pretty stable species of wood, as opposed to white pine. Also, linseed oil doesn't seal wood like varnish or laquer. I can't see biscuit joining unless you apply it to the jamb extensions and apply it to the window in one piece. I seem to remember something about this a few years ago.
bardov, I assume you're talking about what I described. You know how directions are- a wide open field. It's not really a big deal, I just went into way too much detail describing how to screw two boards together. You guys already know that.
Think of all the diddling you have done in the past trying to get miters to fit "grow together" tight and adjusting the angle to accomodate the corner. You don't have to do that. You take all the measurements and screw/glue/brad the frames together then install. What seems like the hard way turns out to be easier.
Disclaimer: (there is some catching on to this)
I biscuit miters. Adds about 30 seconds to the job. No need to clamp while the glue dries. I don't pre-assemble then install, I install piece-by-piece and glue, biscuit, and nail as I go. Nails hold the pieces in place as usual, the biscuit swells up and locks the miter tight in a minute or so.
Easy.
Mongo, That sounds interesting. Do you have a dry run to make sure the miter will close before you glue? The thing I like about the sound of your method is no screw hole. But it still seems you are having to adjust and recut miter angles?? The method I am describing forces the miter closed and makes the trim adjust.
Yeah, I place the pieces, mark them, take them down and cut them. After cutting I do replace them and check the miters for tightness. I mark the location of the biscuit slot, then take the pieces down. Cut the slot. Glue, slip in the biscuit into place, pop them back into place and nail off.
I'd prefer to have a tight joint with no stress on the joint. I'd prefer the miter close easily right off the bat. No clamps, no wedges, no screws. I do understand the idea of pre-stressing, and it sounds interesting. Still, the biscuit(s) holds the miter tight throughout the year, even in houses with no AC where the trim suffers swings in seasonal humidity.
Before cutting I throw a square up on the corner and eyeball its angle. Dead on, cut them at a 45. If the angle is open (>90) or closed (<90) a bit, I usually leave the saw at a 45 but shim the piece to be cut, holding oe end of the trim piece off the fence so the cut angle favors the heel or the toe. It works well. If I want to add a slight backcut to the miter, I'll shim to lift the front edge of the trim piece so it's raised ever-so-slghtly off the bed of the chop saw.
All this shimming may sound intensive, but it's an extra second or so when placing the board to be cut. Once you're used to it and know how you're trying to change a cut, it's easy.
In case anyone is in a nitpicking mood, no, the slight bit of shimming to backcut doesn't adversely affect the plane of the biscuit slot. If you cut a substantial backcut, more than a few degrees, it could, but I'd doctor the wall before going that far.
I don't know about you, but I never measure trim. Mark it in place. How do you deal with profiled casing? I would think you would have to rest the fence of the biscuit cutter on a flat surface, which means you would have to work from the back side of the casing.
If the good Lord would have wanted biscuits in the miter joints, He would have created His own cookies.
bardov, you might have mistook me for someone else. I'm not promoting biscuits. I have had some success and some failure (slop in freud or pilot error?) but never have felt too enchanted with the biscuit. I have marked trim on the spot too, but was just introducing a method fairly new to me. I tried to make it clear it is still in the honeymoon stages with me, not got a history with it yet. I have had enough history with miter joints to be still searching for better answers.
The history of miter joints is long and fraught with great trials and errors. But what this trip is all about is trying to learn from one another. Let me know how it works out. The sages say, "From all of my teachers, I learned." Even us old dogs can learn new tricks.
Virtually all of our casing is "profiled", even the really, really, cheap and cheesy stuff is kind-of a wedge with radiused edges; and you do index the joiner from the back face. You check with your protractor first to see if the window is slightly pantographed and the angles need a nudge of compensation. Then you can, if it's the method you like, biscuit, glue and pin them on the floor (use clamps/jigs to hold until the nails are in - better than taking a brad in the palm of your hand) and then hang them like a picture frame (or 3-sided arch).
.
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
Edited 2/15/2003 12:50:10 PM ET by Phill Giles
protractor?
pantographed??
What the hell ya doing up there........we're all talking about casing out windows!
wood.....pencil......chopsaw......that kinda stuff.
JeffBuck Construction Pittsburgh,PA
Fine Carpentery.....While U Waite
So you don't check to see if the opening has pantographed or use a protractor to determine the real angle to set up on your saw if it has ?.
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
no Phil...I hold a speed square into the corner and wing it from there.
don't know that the lengths are either.......mark the reveals in the corners with my little adjustable square.......mark somewhere along the length a few times.....and gauge the rest by holding the trim stock in place and marking it.
Get the head length by cutting one side...hold it upside down across the top...with that cut tip resting on the side leg tip..and mark the other.
I don't even know what a pantagragh is.....if that means crooked....
I just shim or smack it straight.
Nail tight and move on.
If pantagraph has anything to do with mimes.... I just smack them straight too....
and move one
JeffBuck Construction Pittsburgh,PA
Fine Carpentery.....While U Waite
I'm with bardov...
cut them tight...fit them tight...glue them...nail them off.
Are we forgetting how window and door trim came about......just pieces of wood that'd leave little gaps....so they'd cover the bigger gaps underneath???
JeffBuck Construction Pittsburgh,PA
Fine Carpentery.....While U Waite
My trim guy says that he can never get the biscuit joints perfect. He thinks that hanging the door carefully and nailing patern on the trim are the critical aspects of trimming doors. He also glues the joints. We don't have any problems. I would think that the biscuit joiner might work on flat stock and not much else. Probably not worth the effort and expense.
Ed,
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Construction Forums Online!
Edited 2/15/2003 3:33:04 PM ET by Joe Fusco
Boy, my original question seems to have sparked a lively discussion. I guess there's "more than one way to skin a cat," as they say.
Sounds like the biscuit is getting mixed reviews. I actually just trimmed out a few of those windows this afternoon using the biscuit joiner plus gluing the joint and nailing a 6d from the top of the head casing angled slightly across the end grain of the leg. Seems to work OK--as long as I get my miter cuts dead on. Sure is fussy work!
We'll see how things hold up. I suppose it may be a good thing that it's winter and the relative humidity in the house is running about 30%. The stock I'm using is kiln-dried and basically went directly from the mill to the inside of the house. During the dog days in August, we'll likely see a few 70-80% stretches (ugh!).
I realize the wood's going to move, and that's fine. I'd just rather not be staring at eighth-inch gaps everytime I look at the windows!
Following along from Joe Fusco's point; if you glue and nail the miters tight in advance, then you can let the corners float a bit (i.e. don't nail the casing to either the framing or the jamb to within at least 6-8 inches of the miter - some guys only nail the centre of the top casing on smaller windows) and that way there's less chance of the joint being pulled apart by shrinkage..
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
First guy who wanted me to biscuit all his interior trim, I whined a lot. All 1x4 casing, and 1/2 x 5 base. All w/ a seamless, contemporary look. There is not a one joint opened up over time in that house. Now I always biscuit the bigger stuff, be it mitered or butted (which was the case on his next house for himself).
That sounds like excellent work. How did you nail if off? Did you cross-nail the corners, too?
Still go with the nailed corners too, but I don't know that I need to. More of a precaution while the glue is going off.
Well I'm very late coming to this discussion but I just discovered it surfing
around here today. I came down with pneumonia so I have some time to kill hanging
around since I really can't be going out to work.
I've (we've) been biscuit our trim together for years. I heard complaints
that it slows down installation but my own experience and the statistical records
we've kept seem to show otherwise. I actually think it a time saver in that
it solves problems that can occur when you are trying to get the surfaces
of the two pieces you are joining to register with each other. Perhaps one
of the tricks we've employed that makes it so fast for us is that I've built
these little stands that our plate joiners can sit in upside down and they
can be mounted on a table near the miter saw so all you have to do is push
the cut edge into an already preset machine. I'll make a trip down to the shop
tomorrow and photograph one of the joiner on it's stand so I'm clearer about
that.
However the real reason I wanted to post here was that there is another really
great clamp out there for clamping miters that nobody has mentioned and the
guy who developed them is another BreakTimer. They're called Clam Clamps and
the guy who developed the is Jim Chestnut aka Clampman.
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His website for the clamps is http://miterclamp.com and
there is an old discussion in the archives on them too Clam
Clamps: My new secret weapon . I gotta figure that he must have missed
seeing this topic here (as I did) so I'm going to e-mail him and clue him
in on this. My own opinion is the other miter clamps out there are okay but
none of them have anywhere near the closing power of Jim's Clam Clamps.
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"Function is based
on more than utilitarian factors. Ambiance invites use."- Sarah Susanka
Jerrald, That clamp looks interesting. Could you explain why the wedge if the clamp will tighten up the miter.
What your thinking is a wedge is really the exposed clamping foot part of a cam. You'll notice that's the side of the clamp with the tightneing bar on it. Hopefully Jim can explain it's action further.
View Image
"Function is based
on more than utilitarian factors. Ambiance invites use."- Sarah Susanka
Jerrald,
Thank you for mentioning and posting a pic of the clam clamp. I actually have seen this thread and have been avoiding it for a number of reasons.
Foremost, is that I have a great deal of respect for the editorial staff of this magazine, most of whom I have worked with closely in the past, and would not want to jeprodise any future projects with them by using their forums as a means to hawk my wares. I have enjoyed writing for them over the years, despite the fact that my meticulously written 10 page manuscripts have always been returned stripped and evicerated, though neatly typed ,on a postcard, for my approval prior to publication.
Secondly, I recently received a check from them out of the blue, and am maintaining a low profile until it clears. I have no idea what it was for, but do not want to be removed from that particular list. I love it when that happens.
Thirdly, I am completely sold out of clam clamps and will not be able to get another run together for at least 4 weeks. It is a very bad situation to be in. I had changed my strategy this year and decided to get behind early so that I would have more time to catch up.
One thing I have learned from being in this business for so long is that experience is something I never seem to get until just right after I need it.
I agree with Jerrald, and just about every professional trim crew in Fairfield County CT,(where bigger is better) that it is not only better, but faster by a bunch, to biscuit casings 3 1/2" and wider after precutting all pieces to exactly 45 degrees.
If I were not absolutely convinced of this, I would never have turned over a lucrative trim business with an extremely talented crew to my junior partner, to break thousands of dollars of tooling learning how to machine metals that are not nearly as green as poplar.
The technique we used for wide casings is spelled out on the JLC site in an article I wrote for them a long time ago. A whole bunch of trim crews are using parts of this techinque on large projects. If this works then here is the link for anyone interested.
http://www.jlconline.com/cgi-bin/jlconline.storefront/3e600625006850f7271a401e1d2905b2/UserTemplate/82?s=3d7bd68400955364271a401e1d290665&c=1706a14d892cf8138bb8db2505e9ae56&p=1
Hopefully, all this gibberish will go through the system and turn blue. We'll see.
regards,
Clampman
Just when I thought there wasn't any other tool I wanted......
Fonzie,
You just interupted my reading of "The Bargain News". There is a nice lathe in this issue I'm going to call about tomorrow.
"Never buy one of anything, always buy two."
Clampman
Thanks for the info. and the photo. So does the clamp replace the cross-nailing in terms of holding the thing together while the glue sets?
I just trimmed out my whole house and biscuit jointed all the miters. It didn't seem like a huge amount of extra time--once I got a system down, that is. I won't mention the times early on where I forgot the cut the slot in one of the pieces and had to run back to the plate joiner at the last minute.