I have a lot of trim work coming up and am looking for a machine that can cope multiple base profiles quickly. Any suggestions?
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There's a machine, I think called a Copemaster, that works like a key cutter. You make a template, and use that to make the rest of your copes.
The drawback is I think it costs about $2500.
You should be able to google it.
Get a jigsaw and practice. You will have the base coped by hand before you will even have it set up in a machine.
J.P.
Or do it with a right angle grinder and get it done even quicker!
Doug
Too dusty. J.P.http://www.jpkfinefurniture.com
off topic but nonetheless, I just clicked the link to your site. Man oh man. Furniture. My first love. That bombe takes some skill. I won't tell you that I could pull it off. Thought I'd throw you a compliment. You earned it."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
Thank You.J.P.http://www.jpkfinefurniture.com
To dusty you say?http://www.dustmuzzle.com
Cool. Thanks for the link.Do you use one of those things? How well does it work?J.P.http://www.jpkfinefurniture.com
http://www.garymkatz.com/Tool%20Reviews/CollinsCopingFoot.htm
I'm with JP.
A jig saw and some practice. I'm still looking for something faster. I've heard some people say right angle grinder but not for me.
Some big crews, doing tracts, show up with all the trim cut to within an inch of finished length and the appropriate ends "coped" on a shaper back at the shop. Every stick of trim has a bar-code label which shows up on the floor-plans and a coloured dot that quick-keys to the room.But the economics are tricky, a big crew can't make a shaper pay on-site because the transit times add up so quickly. A one-man band can't economically move a shaper from house to house; but, they can pre-cut/pre-cope at a shop and make it work. Small crews can get bogged down in complexity and can neither track, nor explain, their efficiency..
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
I've seen shops that send door casing for doors in carpeted areas already mitred. Never seen the pre-coped thing. For a small crew, a guy with a jigsaw and some practice is about as fast as it gets. Practice is the key word.
Never really gave the grinder thing a chance.
What ever happened to taking the time to do it right??
A coping saw in capable hands is plenty fast enuf.
Only in Amerika
Mr. T. MOTOL
"I think natural selection must have greatly rewarded the ability to reassure oneself in a crisis with complete bull$hit."
I'm Swiss!
<What ever happened to taking the time to do it right??A coping saw in capable hands is plenty fast enuf.>Ha, ha ,ha....the dodos took all the coping saws along with the cordless miter boxes and yankee screwdrivers<G>
"what's in a name?" d'oh!
Bite Me , Bite Me!!
:)
One of those is a noun and one is a verb...
Mr. T. MOTOL
"I think natural selection must have greatly rewarded the ability to reassure oneself in a crisis with complete bull$hit."
I'm Swiss!
ya beat me to it.
I was just gonna say; "what's the rush?"
Used to be trim was relaxing.It's Never Too Late To Become
What You Might Have Been
[email protected]
I tried a jigsaw at Riverfest.
NO WAY I want to introduce that kind of stress to coping...
Economy of motion, thinking ahead, having the right stock, good tunes, no management around, the song of a sharp coping saw, the whistle of a sharp plane, the oohs and aaahs of satisfied clientele...
Good finish work is like good sex, enough skill and you don't need electric tools.
Mr. T. MOTOL
"I think natural selection must have greatly rewarded the ability to reassure oneself in a crisis with complete bull$hit."
I'm Swiss!
Good finish work is like good sex, enough skill and you don't need electric tools.
I like that; it's a keeper!It's Never Too Late To Become
What You Might Have Been
[email protected]
Good finish work is like good sex, enough skill and you don't need electric tools.
T, your a freaking genus!
But I'm still going to use my right angle grinder on copes and I'll do them quicker then a jig or coping saw! That way I have more time for other things. ;)
Doug
"Good finish work is like good sex, enough skill and you don't need electric tools."That should be embroidered, framed and mounted!
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
You can do it right and fast with a jigsaw. Plus no worries about carpel tunnel.J.P.http://www.jpkfinefurniture.com
What blade would you use in the jigsaw for that application ? We use a fair bit of 5 1/4" colonial poplar base or FJP.....First we get good- then we get fast !
I agree with JP on the jig saw and I use a 244D on a Bosch 1587 because it is recommended by the Collins Tool company that sells a coping foot for several jig saws. The blade (244D) is very aggressive, I'm guessing 4 TPI but since your performing a back cut it gives a very clean finish on the front side of the moulding.
I started using the regular Bosch T101B blades and they worked fine with minimal burning. Alot of the trim I was installing was 5"-7" x3/4" thick poplar crown and 5"-8"x5/8" thick base. I switched to the T101A0 blades for a while when a guy I was working with was supplying blades. The smaller blades, T101A0, have no hook and minimal set so they are a bit easier to control but don't work well on 3/4" material.I would stick with the regular, T101B, blades. Once you get enough practice the blades don't really matter.I attached a pic of the different blades to show the difference in size and tooth patern.Edit: I used a Bosch top handle jigsaw with no coping foot or any aftermarket jig.J.P.http://www.jpkfinefurniture.com
Edited 10/10/2005 9:21 pm ET by JP
Thanks for all the input. I think the Copemaster is similar to what I am looking for. I don't disagree that a jigsaw, especially with a coping foot, can do the job well and fairly quickly. Also, I'm certainly not afraid to put that technique to use with any of my four jigs on a small job. On larger projects, for the past five years, I have made a router jig out of solid surface scraps and routed all copes prior to installing a single stick of base. The time spent on these jigs has always been more than made up and increased productivity (profit). Facing over 60 trim jobs in the next 6 to 8 months with a relatively small crew is what brings the search an even faster solution that still maintains quality.
JP if you get a chance try the Bosch T101 AO blade if you haven't already
Try the Bosch T101AO if it's still available. Very smooth cuts in just about anything.
FIRST CUT STRAIGHT CUTS IN MITERSAW. THEN ONLY COPE DETAILS.
I'm with you!!! How hard is it to cope with a coping saw? That is the only way I have ever done it. It's fast , simple , cheap , and satisfying!The lengths that people will go to,to avoid to do it right is amazing to me.
I rip all my boards with an old Diston saw. I see some people using some silly machine with a round blade on it, seems to spin fast but I dont know why people cant just do it the right way!!!!
Doug
And I still grab a beaver by the tail when I want to cut down a tree, they just wimper a little bit, and they do it pretty quietly<G> "what's in a name?" d'oh!
LOL, are your beavers the anti-recoil type with the tickle-belly starters?
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
<LOL, are your beavers the anti-recoil type with the tickle-belly starters?>I only wish they were that cute! You ever seen one up close? They definitely make me recoil<G> "what's in a name?" d'oh!
read it again with a different beaver in mind
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
ohhhh, now I'm LMBO! "what's in a name?" d'oh!
I'm with you!!! How hard is it to cope with a coping saw? That is the only way I have ever done it. It's fast , simple , cheap , and satisfying!The lengths that people will go to,to avoid to do it right is amazing to me.
Run a couple of hundred feet of 7" oak crown in day and get back to me on that.
I've never used a grinder or any other machine other than a Jigsaw so I cant speak about them. When used properly and with the right blade a jigsaw simply becomes an electric coping saw. I don't even use a Collins foot. Just a regular Bosch with a T101AO blade in it. The teeth have the same pattern and cut characteristics as a coping saw.
Just like learning to cope by hand, there is a learning curve. You'll only ever be as good with a jigsaw as you were by hand. On the other hand, I can make tighter, cleaner and more "Right" copes with my jigsaw than 95% of the finish carpenters I've met in my life can by hand. Right has to do with properly following the profile and achieving the proper amount of back cut in order to make a nice joint. What tool you use to do this matters not a bit.
The Title of the thread is " Production Trim". That implies to me that he needs to be as fast as possible while doing the best job he can in order to make money.
Nothing wrong with doing it by hand, unless it's eating into your profit and there is a way to do it faster and of the same quality.
You hit the nail on the head!!!
oh wait you dont use a hammer anymore!!!
:)
"Production trim" is an Oxymoron.
it usually involves McMansions.
production trim is a term coined by contractors whose only concern is how much money they can make.
A local hospital has gone to "production bypass surgery"
some bean counter has determined that long stays in the hosp. after open heart are not cost effective.
48 hours and you go home
unless you develop complications
like the ones that come from bering forced to go home too early....
I feel sorry for any carpenter that feels he has to rush through finish work.
to me it is like the just desserts of a well done job.
relax a bit and take some time to enjoy the craft.
Get your mojo flowin
become one with the wood grasshopper
think about how nice it is to not be in an office a$$-kissin the boss all day.
Mr. T. MOTOL
"They keep talking about drafting a constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it's worked for over 200 years, and we're not using it anymore."-- George Carlin
"I think natural selection must have greatly rewarded the ability to reassure oneself in a crisis with complete bull$hit."
I'm Swiss!
I agree with the zen and enjoyment of finish carpentry, most jobs we don't have to rush, and are proud to turn out nice work. When we did a large house with 4000' of 8" crown run out of 6/4 poplar I HAD to learn to use a jigsaw to cope. Even the good blades in my nice mail order coping saw tended to break in the fat portion of the stock. When I got it down, the jigsaw worked well. I went back and finessed the details by hand with a coping saw, rasp , sandpaper-whatever worked. I am focused on turning out a good product in reasonable time, whether by old methods or new, the end result is the only thing that matters.
Edited 10/15/2005 9:22 am ET by BradR
Here is the above resized and another, still getting used to Irfanview.
When you re-sized, you made it a larger file instead of smaller.The reason is partly becuase you resaved as BMP instead of JPG. The JPG format is a very efficient condensiong format that drasticly reduces file size for internet viewing while the BMP can be used for finer high quality prints. in the drop down menu chose JPG as the saves as file type.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Now, now, now<"Production trim" is an Oxymoron.it usually involves McMansions.>I know I can be an oxygen breathing moron, but I try to do every job as a production. I'm lucky enough not to have to work on McMansions, too<G>Hanging a door, then trimming a window, then cutting a tread, then running some crown, then going back to the beginning, is only frustrating to me. Each job is a series of tasks, and each task is bits of work performed in a sequence. I like figuring out ways to case all the windows, or whatever, with the best quality and most efficiency. Zen carpentry is not what you do, it's what you don't do...and what you don't do is let people see how hard it is to plan all the steps. Do dat carpenter magic<G>We get to aa house, prep all the window & door openings, do all the sheetrock damage that we can, & clean it up once. Case all the doors, hang all the doors...and, we only use coping saws on shoe...get jiggy with it! "what's in a name?" d'oh!
Oh No you don't!!!
if you don't agree with me totally...
your a terrorist sympathizing leftwing moonbat commie pinko!
Mr. T. MOTOL
"They keep talking about drafting a constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it's worked for over 200 years, and we're not using it anymore."-- George Carlin
"I think natural selection must have greatly rewarded the ability to reassure oneself in a crisis with complete bull$hit."
I'm Swiss!
<your a terrorist sympathizing leftwing moonbat commie pinko!>.You dang skippy I am...but when I do use a coping saw, I use a sweet English baby. An Eclipse...fits right into a left handed moonbat's paw<G> I also stick German blades in it >:-0Now, what's up with this Swiss stuff? I figured your family was from a little farther south. My family, on the other hand, is Swiss...and, I would be glad to handle your lira<G> "what's in a name?" d'oh!
I still do many things the "old way", I carry hand saws of all types, and I have flattened many a warped boards with my razor sharp old Bedrock bench planes.
However...Have you ever been the cut man on a job and hand coped 512" or wider crown that is either poplar or maple, and done it all day long? I have, and after a couple hours and broken cope blades of doing that I gladly will use the jigsaw. Your cramped hands need the Ben Gay at the end of the day no matter how slow you want to go.
I have a thing called Easycope. It's not the best I'm sure, but it's not bad. Smaller mouldings 312" or less I just use the cope saw, especially if they're pine and there's not many cuts. Like a poster said earlier, it's in the practice.
Hey at least he wants to cope them. Most guys are hacks and can only cut mitres.
Yeah, how come it took twelve responces to get a coping saw into the discussion?
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Hey Josh
I just purchased this coping jig that you use with a router. Looks cool and hopefully it will work! Look at the web site and the video demo.
http://www.thecoper.com
Good Luck!
Thanks. My previous site made jigs are similar to The Coper but the pour and cast template seams ingenious.
there was an article in fhb i believe about setting up a jig for your router. looked pretty efficient. i think it was last year sometime.
lol i still use a "coping" saw.
tyke
Just another day in paradise
rockler.com has a mold and router set up, not sure how well it works but no matter what you will have hand work.
production trim?
I don't recall seeing any hardwood/stain grade trim run on big "production" jobs.
are U talking about preprimed/ FJ pine ... or stain grade hardwoods ... just lotsa of it?
Me ... I'm an old fashion coping saw guy. Have the collins coping foot in the basch jig saw case ... put it on and fight with it on jobs when I have an extra day or two ... just can't seem to master the thing myself. I never put enough time into it ... as I'm pretty darn fast with the old cheap coping saw.
for base ... I cut the miters and flip the stock ... and zip off the back cut on the flat right there at the mitersaw. I then flip it back upright ... and "nip the tip" ... Now ... I only have the curved part of the ogee to cope saw thru.
Crown .. all done by hand. And again .. I've worked along side guys that swear by the jig saw .. and I don't think they're any faster ... and I blow up pretty much nothing compared to hearing their "aw sh!ts!" every now and then ... hardwoods might be harder ... but oak can explode!
I cut to within a hair .. and trim with a utility knife if need be.
but ... back to "production trim" ... if truely production trim ... me ...
I'd pick up that electronic angle finder ... and just miter the corners.
it's paint grade right? A super tight .... correct .. miter ... with a zip of the painters caulk .... and that gap is never gonna open.
Copes are there to deal with the outta plumb and outta square. If I could get all my miters within a small 8th using the angle finder ... I'd be thrilled to have a hairline of caulk under the paint line.
No need for coping there.
For anyone thinking that's hack work ... think prefinished cabinet stock trim.
what's the "best method" for that?
simple tight miters. adjusted to as close to prefection as possible.
glued and hopefully preassembled back screwed and/or nailed tight.
so why would base trim run the same way be any "less" quality than standard cabinet quality?
Jeff
Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa
What T said................all of it.
Whatever it was.................I didnt do it.
The trim refers to stain grade hardwoods of different species and profiles. While production refers to Sixty plus waterfront condo units to be completed in a short timeframe by a relatively small crew.