Crown Moulding

baysidebob · Post by **baysidebob** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 8:50 pm

Friend called me today, says he put new cabinet up in one of his bathrooms. Now his wife wants it trimmed with crown moulding. He bought a couple pieces of crown mounding for the project. He tried doing this yesterday, started with abouit 14' of moulding. So far all he has been able to make is firewood. Nothing fits right. Having never worked with crown can anyone suggest solutions for him. He has approx. 6' left to work with...I googled this but what I have sound are sites that want to sell you a 150 page book with 350+ pictures in it. Is there an easier way of doing this?
Thanks for what ever help anyone can give me......

beeg · Post by **beeg** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 8:56 pm

I HOPE he has flat ceilings. KNOT cathedral ceilings.

a1gutterman · Post by **a1gutterman** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 9:11 pm

baysidebob wrote:Friend called me today, says he put new cabinet up in one of his bathrooms. Now his wife wants it trimmed with crown moulding. He bought a couple pieces of crown mounding for the project. He tried doing this yesterday, started with abouit 14' of moulding. So far all he has been able to make is firewood. Nothing fits right. Having never worked with crown can anyone suggest solutions for him. He has approx. 6' left to work with...I googled this but what I have sound are sites that want to sell you a 150 page book with 350+ pictures in it. Is there an easier way of doing this?
Thanks for what ever help anyone can give me......

Hi Bob,
Cutting the angles on moldings (crown or otherwise) can be tricky at first. Once you learn where to hold the piece to make the cut, it usually gets easier. I find the easiest tool for this work is a chop saw. I also find that most mistakes are made by placing the work piece flat on the table or flat against the fence. You must hold the workpiece in the same position that it is going to end up in, as a finished piece, when making the cut. Now, have I confused you completely?

anmius · Post by **anmius** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 9:21 pm

One of the tricks to installing crown molding on a flat ceiling is to lean it against the chop saw table and fence just like against the cabinet and ceiling, except place it UPSIDE DOWN. That way your outside miters will come out as you expect them. Inside miters are really not miters but coped joints. Of all of the moldings I have ever worked with, crown molding is the most difficult and take the most time (at least for me).

Here are a few of links that aren't 150 page books and should be enough information:

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/how-to/ ... 81,00.html

http://www.ehow.com/how_15090_install-c ... lding.html

http://www.bobvila.com/HowTo_Library/In ... S2844.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lJmw5_sR8o

Ron309753 · Post by **Ron309753** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 9:06 am

Bob,

It sounds from your description that she wants crown moulding on top of the cabinets and not against the ceiling. Either way, crown moulding requires a compound miter. If he doesn't have access to a compound miter saw he could rent one for a day, but make sure it's a compund miter saw. Here is another video from Wood magazine that provides some good information on miter saws and a little bit of information on cutting crown moulding.
http://www.woodmagazine.com/woodvision/?lid=1339078517

Hope this helps!

Sincerely,

Ron

enyoc · Post by **enyoc** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 9:20 am

If I may expand on what Anmius wrote, pretend the base of your miter saw is the ceiling, and the fence of your miter saw is the wall, then before cutting each piece, look at the ceiling/wall and imagine it turned upside down - this is much easier if you are cutting bed molding which it sounds like your project will need (does she want the cabinet trimmed, or the bathroom, bed is smaller than crown), but if it's big crown, and the fence of your miter saw isn't tall enough, you can make an aux fence out of ply - this way you can avoid compound cuts, which I never get right

heathicus · Post by **heathicus** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 9:42 am

When I built the surround and mantel for our fireplace, everything went great for me except the crown molding. That just about kicked my butt! I bought extra to begin with, but wasted so much of it I still had to go back and get more. But with a little research and a very simple technique, I eventually won the battle.

What I did was pretty much what you see on this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PlJiJ2afKU

Basically, on your miter saw, you put the crown molding in the corner of the fence and table at an angle just as it would be mounted in the corner of the wall and ceiling - except you cut it upside down. As in the video, I also built an auxiliary fence & table with a stop to hold the molding in position while I cut. I built it out of MDF. My only problem after doing this was remembering to cut the molding upside down! So I wrote "ceiling" on the table and "wall" on the fence. After all of this, cutting the crown molding was pretty much a breeze.

I still had some problems because the corners on my project weren't perfect 90 degree corners.

I also don't have a nail gun and I had a very hard time keeping the molding in place and lined up while I nailed it. But my mother-in-law showed me a great trick - fill in the gaps with silicone caulk and just smooth it out with your fingers. If you're painting over it, it blends perfectly. If you're not painting, this trick won't work.

baysidebob · Post by **baysidebob** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 3:20 pm

Thanks for all responses on this problem. I talked to my friend this morning and he managed to complete project last night. He did follow what we came up with yesterday and it all worked out well. HIS WIFE WAS VERY HAPPY.
Some of these web sites are very informative, you guys a great to have around.....

Thanks again..................................

navycop · Post by **navycop** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 9:58 pm

Another good site for crown molding "how to" and just about anything else. http://www.askthebuilder.com