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I’ve been building a front porch off my house this summer. Just put the ceiling in last week. The height of the ceiling is such that it touches the house about 3/4″ above the tops of the window casings (thickness of 1″). I plan on wrapping some crown molding over the casing and back onto the house. Because of the 1″ casing thickness, those small pieces of crown “returns” are a real pain. Tried to cope the inside edge and cut the outside edge on a CMS last night-didn’t work to well beacuse of the small size. Would mitering the inside edge as well as the outside edge be a better way to go? Or other alterniatives? Thanks for any insight, suggestions
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I usually cope the piece that runs into the small piece. Then just miter the outside corner and butt the other end under the cope.
*Jim,Charles' method is probably the best way to do it, but if you already have the long pieces up against the house and don't want to pull them try this...Do the cope on a decent length of crown(1' to 2')then make your mark and place it on the saw. Then take a heavy rubber band and tape it to what will be the small piece once you make your outside miter cut, tape the other end of the rubber band to the edge of your miter saw (Experiment to get the tension right). When you make your cut the rubber band will pull the small piece free of the blade and leave it sitting on your saw base. Hope this helps you. Richard Max
*Jim,Both the above suggestions are good ones.The other option is to miter the house crown and casing return (the inside angle), and cut the return outside angle, then glue and nail the 1" return to the long house stick of crown before installing it.That way you can get brads into it from the back side.good luck,Clampman
*Jim,All great ideas.When making the small return peice on the mitre box, I make the mitre cut and then when I make the straight cut I don't quite cut it all the way through. I can finish the cut with a razor knife for soft woods or a dove tail saw for harder woods. I've heard of the rubber band trick, but never have used it. I bet it works great. I can't tell you how many returns I've shot across the room before I got smart.In the past we have built up the window portion of the moulding on the bench and then naild it to the wall. Then we cope the long house runs into that. Cope or 45 makes no difference to me, but trying to 45 such a small inside corner is always a pain. I vote for cope.Good luck,Ed. Williams
*I suppose it would be too crude to suggest running a 1" thick backer between the windows, then one straight run of crown over backer and casings alike? You could make it look more "intentional" by shaping the bottom edge of the backer like regular crown backer.Never mind, I didn't say that. Such fussy craftsmen here! This sounds like very nice detailing, but I bet you'll be able to count on one hand the number of people who notice. True, YOU will know.Ed, for some reason I have a friendly CMS that (usually) just lets little cutoffs fall on the table. I wonder if there's a way to make that happen on purpose? I like the rubber band!
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Thanks all for your input.
Decided to forget coping and just miter the returns on both ends. Then used brads and glue to attach. Took alot of trial and error cuts to get the right return length, but being a DIYer, my time is real cheap.
Thanks again.
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I’m inclined to mitering myself. Although I first learned to cope when I started trim carpentry in 1973 I’ve graduated from that process since around 1984 when I got my first miter saw. For one thing the method of coping has been used in the past mainly because the tooling in the past was nothing like it is today. Plus in a general sense it is always thought to be the best way for joining two pieces of trim at an inside corner for reasons related to the shrinkage and snap-in capacity of a double cope. However chances are in the real work world of today your going to find it necessary to miter with the 15, 30, 45, and 60-degree corners found in many of the newer houses today. Which may call for a real cut of 7, 13.5, 21.75, and 29.25 to maintain the crown at a given and exact distance down the wall and have a tight fit.
Coping requires that there be an adjustment made for inside corner cuts too. Let’s say the corner into which a miter is to be made has an angle of 85-degrees, it is the inverse of the acute. That is if a speed square is set into the corner there is approximately a 1/2 to 5/8 inch gap at the front tip of the blade. If an adjoining crown is cut at 45 degrees and coped it will be necessary to move the material up the wall and further out from the wall on the ceiling to get a tight mitered look. For example let’s say a crown that sets at 3.25 from and down the wall must be at an exact distance all the way around a 4 inch recessed soffit. If one of the inside corners is as mentioned an 85-degree corner and a cope is cut at 45 degrees it will be necessary to move the material up and away from the wall on the ceiling to make a tight fit unless the cope is done at 40 degrees. This may mean the bottom is then 2.75 inches from the ceiling and the ceiling is out and exposing the upper edge of the crown plus when looking at the soffit there is a noticeable gaping taking place. Both pieces could have been cut in a saw set to 42.5-degrees for the left and right cuts with them set in the saw as on the ceiling and been perfect and at the needed distances down and out from the corner. Granted the corner mudding may make it have differences of 1/8th of an inch in most cases unless realized before setting the matterial. Checking with a speed square a compensation can be made for this when cutting.
I think you did right by mitering. You would have done that if it was crown on the top of a cabinet anyhow.
Dale Williams
IF there isn’t enough time to do it right the first time there is always more that enough to make it right.
*Dale, actually the cope will work fine for out of square corners. I finally understood how it works recently (and boy am I slow at geometry).Basically, the cuts for miter and coped corners are exactly the same. The result in both cases right after cutting with the miter saw is the same, that the visible inner surfaces of the crown intersect; except with the cope you leave one piece uncut and remove hidden back material from the coped piece so they can fit together. So an 85° corner requires a 42.5° miter on both pieces for a miter and on just one piece of crown for a cope. If you look at a piece before or during coping from the perspective of the intersecting crown you can see the bits of wood that need to be removed.The only thing I've noticed is that the mitered crowns are usually done sloppier than the coped, but I guess it doesn't have to be that way. I like the way the coped piece pins the other one down.
*Andrew, I’m glad you caught the angle cut being 42.5-degrees for both a cope and a miter. I ran home after work realizing what I had written was off regarding that fact. I think your right regarding mitered crown molding looking sloppier but only as a general rule. I think the reason is because as a general rule many carpenters are not able to acquire the correct angle at which to cut the miter. I have found that I can use a Speed Square for acquiring an accurate angle at which to cut the material. There are a few tricks I use to acquire inside corners on 60, 45, 30 and odd angled walls that anyone can learn. I’m also able to acquire accurate outside corner angles to the surprise of many a scoffer turned believer after seeing how to do it. I had one job in Seattle Washington for the UPS main office and outlet. There we were installing Cherry crown mold, wainscot, pillars and desk. I was working as a sub contractor for the company building and installing the material. One guy who worked for this company and with whom I was working was one great mechanic and had a cool angle tool that was suppose to get accurate outside and inside corners. He had tried two times to get an outside corner cut using the angle it told him to cut. I asked him to let me give it a try with my speed square and I’m happy to say he became a believer that day. I’m really glad you caught my error.Dale WilliamsIF there isn’t enough time to do it right the first time there’ll be more than enough to fix it right.
*Speed square trick?? Don't leave me hanging! I've been trying to use a small protractor deal -- probably the same idea as that angle tool -- and it is somewhat helpful, but these plaster walls require some hunting around no matter what.I had a 30° inside corner in a nook ... and decided to build a nice little soffit right past it rather than deal with the cuts. How do you get such steep cuts -- using a CM?
*The process is really easy for acquiring the angle at which to cut your pieces for a 30-degree or any other inside or outside corners.. What is it that makes doing odd angle corners such a hassle? It could be the numerous trips to the saw to find the right angle at which to cut. Many times a 30 degree breakfast nook may appear to be 45-degrees. So we usually start with a scrap set of material cut to 22.5-degrees and start working towards the right angle at which the corner must be set. This can mean 4,5,or even 6 trips to the saw for just one corner. By using a speed square and a large square cut piece of material at least 8 inches wide by 8 to 12 inches long you can find the angle in one fell swoop. Put a piece of material, I used marble tile 12x12 on the job I’m doing now for a number of these cuts, and put it to the corner. An 8 by 12 board is fairly handy because it will be far enough along the wall length to show if there is a curve to the corner and tall enough for the 7 inch blade of the speed square.. Now using the speed square take a reading of what it says. If the wall is 30-degrees, or there abouts, the reading will be the inverse or 60-degrees. Let’s say it reads 55 or 65. Those angles are 35 or 25-degrees respectfully meaning the saw settings are to be 17.5 or 12.5. Now two scraps can be cut to see just how much a corner is rounded because of plaster or mud being done with a rounded rubber trowel, boy do I hate those things. They make the corners look good but when the corner is to have trim it makes it look bad. Now that the angle is known and how much the mud or plaster is in the way it is now time to decide whether to cut the wall to let the trim set in or just leave it and have the trim caulked on the edge, pretty hard decision when working with plastered walls GWB isn’t too big a deal. If the material is cut out the miter isn’t changed too dramatically but should be rechecked. OK, that’s how to acquire the angle at which to cut for an inside corner of 15 to 60-degrees. To acquire the angle for an outside corner of any angle I use a piece of scrap which will go past the wall by at least 7.5 inches and along the wall for at least12 or more inches. The speed square is then placed up to it and there is usually a gap noticed at the tip. Depending upon the gap it could be 1,2,3, 4 or more degrees out. Very seldom do I come across a squared wall corner. The trick here is to recognize the angle of the sliver of space. Just imagine another speed square back to back with the one at the wall and you will be able to see the approximate angle. I have times where because of framing or architectural design there are some pretty strange outside corner angles with which to deal. For these I use the speed square, a piece of scrape and either a tape or a set of scribes to find the angle (I have one other tool to use which I will explain in a minute but it makes it far too easy. I just want to teach other ways of using the speed square at this stage of the writing). Remember the speed square is the quarter part of a circle with its angles marked to 90 of those degrees. If when holding the speed square to the scrap the angled space between the blade and the scrap is over 1/2 an inch there is going to be some difficulty in making a determination. By spreading a scribe so it spans the gap you can then move the blade over to be the filler of the gap and the scribe can be right on the line that will tell you the angle. Just keep in mind that the hypotenuse blade isn’t round so for some angles the scribes are not set at the tip but back where the blade marking will be when the blade is brought to the scrap. That should take care of most situations. Now for the final and the easiest method of all. A speed square and a framing square used together. Just wait until you try it. Put a framing square around an outside corner and if you have a gap slide the speed square into the gap and take the reading. Too easy eh? I know, your thinking why didn’t he point to this first. The reason is that you may be on a job without a framing square and then on jobs where you do have a framing square if the material bows when shoved tight to the corner the angle is changed dramatically. A framing square will not bow to the real setting you’ll need but it will work for a lot of situations. At any rate there are defiantly easy ways to acquire accurate angles at which to cut a piece of material. Any more questions?
*My God, no questions. But good common sense, I'll try it.I dealt with my "nook problem" by building a small (3") soffit. Looks better, actually, to have the ceiling a little lower.
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I've been building a front porch off my house this summer. Just put the ceiling in last week. The height of the ceiling is such that it touches the house about 3/4" above the tops of the window casings (thickness of 1"). I plan on wrapping some crown molding over the casing and back onto the house. Because of the 1" casing thickness, those small pieces of crown "returns" are a real pain. Tried to cope the inside edge and cut the outside edge on a CMS last night-didn't work to well beacuse of the small size. Would mitering the inside edge as well as the outside edge be a better way to go? Or other alterniatives? Thanks for any insight, suggestions