I find mitering baseboards, actually getting the length of any miter precise. Turns out that most people do, sighted or blind.
The first thing to remember is that there is a difference between inside and outside corners. If you are cutting inside corners at both ends of the board then starting with a board the exact length can work provided that when you cut the miter you do not quite touch the back edge with the cut. This would be fine if all corners were square. You can fudge an unsquare corner a little by keeping a short piece, pushing it into place and checking for which side of the joint is open then guessing at a slight difference opening or closing the cut a little beyond or a little less than 45 on the mating piece. The correct way to fit an inside corner though is to cope it. Do this with a hand coping saw. For best results you cut one board with straight ends preferably the one which will be seen most readily, the one opposite the entry door or the one on the short end of the room so that the cope will be less visible. To cope cut the end of the mating board cut your 45 even though there isn't going to be a 45 on the board you are meeting. This 45 will give you a line that is fairly easy to follow with a hand coping saw. Line the thin blade of the coping saw up with the edge of the miter cut and begin by following the edge of the 45 miter cut just where the slope meets the face of the board. Angle the saw off of the vertical just a little bit so that you are forming a slight back cut, this will put a sharper edge against the face of the board you are mating with. This will tighten the joint even further. You can then improve your cope if necessary with a touch of a file or even sand paper. Outside corners though are usually mitered. Because I have a power miter saw I always try to cut a little big. I never seem to be able to measure precisely enough to get it spot on. I will often use a pair of short guides cut at 45, bring them together and if the joint isn't looking satisfactory then I guess and cheat a little when it comes to the actual cut to bring the joint closer. This isn't always wonderful but usually pretty good. You could keep scrap around and make additional test cuts until you get the angle absolute then cut the actual stock or you could also fiddle it a nbit with a sliding bevel but for me that is a little too small to work a sliding bevel well enough. Someone already mentioned the power of wood filler in the final analysis. These days, capital blocks and other corner fittings are becoming popular and for this very reason. You put a block in the corner, something a little thicker and taller than your baseboard usually then bring the board up to it. You now have a classy corner and no mitering. You can do a similar thing for outside corners or even a piece of fairly thick quarter round mounted vertically. Magic! the mitering goes away! They are doing similar things around door frames, there are even decoratively carved capitals for that top corner of a door frame and pieces for the bottom as well. Hope this is helpful. Dale Leavens, Cochrane Ontario Canada [EMAIL PROTECTED] Skype DaleLeavens Come and meet Aurora, Nakita and Nanook at our polar bear habitat. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Scott Howell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 6:58 AM Subject: [BlindHandyMan] cutting baseboards or trim > Folks, > > I've recently done a project replacing baseboard in the house. Now > I'm a bit embarassed to admit I did a pretty crappy job of it. I say > this because some of my measurements were obviously off since I had > to piece some sections of trim in to fill shortend areas. I'm going > to rip out what I did and do it over. I can tell you the job despite > my best efforts can't hide the mess I made, but of course regardless > if it does or not does not address the issue. I think I understand > why its wrong, but not sure how to avoid this in the future. > Here's the situation. > > I measured lets say 10 feet of trim by measuring from corner to > corner of the room and yes, wall to wall not trim edge ot trim edge. > Now since they are corners I know I need to cut the ends at a 45 > degree angle in order for the ajoining pieces to fit. I think what I > might be doing wrong is first measuring out my piece, cutting it, and > then trying to then cut the angle. So, perhaps measuring out 10 feet > and cutting at that point at the angle would insure I have the angle > and exact cut. I may be wrong on this as it seems it wasn't perfect > either. So, any suggestions, tips, etc. would be appreciated on how > to deal with trim. I really want to get this cutting deal down so I > can start working on some other projects. > My wife wants a coffee table that is much smaller than the one we > have currently. I'd like to build one, but don't want to waste a lot > of wood experimenting unnecessarily. Matter of fact she wants either > a rectangle or even an oval shape. If an oval, top is desired, how > would one go about making such a creature? > Thoughts on this also appreciated. > > tnx > > Scott > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > > To listen to the show archives go to link > http://acbradio.org/handyman.html > or > ftp://ftp.acbradio.org/acbradio-archives/handyman/ > > The Pod Cast address for the Blind Handy Man Show is. > http://www.acbradio.org/news/xml/podcast.php?pgm=saturday > > The Pod Cast address for the Cooking In The Dark Show is. > http://www.gcast.com/u/cookingindark/main.xml > > Visit The Blind Handy Man Files Page To Review Contributions From Various > List Members At The Following address: > http://www.jaws-users.com/handyman/ > > Visit the new archives page at the following address > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > For a complete list of email commands pertaining to the Blind Handy Man > list just send a blank message to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > -- > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.1.410 / Virus Database: 268.16.7/618 - Release Date: 6/01/2007 > > To listen to the show archives go to link http://acbradio.org/handyman.html or ftp://ftp.acbradio.org/acbradio-archives/handyman/ The Pod Cast address for the Blind Handy Man Show is. http://www.acbradio.org/news/xml/podcast.php?pgm=saturday The Pod Cast address for the Cooking In The Dark Show is. http://www.gcast.com/u/cookingindark/main.xml Visit The Blind Handy Man Files Page To Review Contributions From Various List Members At The Following address: http://www.jaws-users.com/handyman/ Visit the new archives page at the following address http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ For a complete list of email commands pertaining to the Blind Handy Man list just send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! 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