Saturday, June 21, 2014

Coping

Just like in life, it's how well you deal with irregularities that sets you apart...

This morning I cut all the base shoe.  I installed all of it in the bathroom because it will be easy to paint in place.  That's not necessarily true in the bar area.  Some of the shoe will be difficult to do in place, so I'll prime and paint before installing it.  Other parts need to be stained to match the cabinets and that's also easier done prior to installation.

One of the tricks to get a tight fitting inside joint is "coping"  Remember in the previous post where I mentioned that nothing is plumb, square, or level?  Coping solves the problem when corners aren't 90 degrees, too.

 Rather than cutting both side with an inside miter, you only do one (the one on the right in this photo).  Just let the other side die into the corner.

Step two is to to take a pencil and rub it along the edge of the mitered cut.  It gives a clear definition of the molding's profile.

Now just take your coping saw (you wondered why it was called a coping saw didn't you?) and cut along the pencil line.  You don't want it perfectly perpendicular; removing a little extra material at the back of the molding will actually make it fit better in the end.

When you're done, it will look like this photo.  It's OK that it is ugly at the back, as long as you followed the pencil line along the miter's edge...

Then flip it back over and check the fit.

Voila.

Perfect joint.

Friday, June 20, 2014

Bar Cabinets


Last weekend I installed the cabinets in the bar.

Nothing is plumb or level in houses, old or new, and this house isn't any different.

I halfheartedly tried installing them the old-school way with shims and a level.  I've done it before and it's still a pain.

I say halfheartedly because I found these things on the web and wanted to try the old-school way before plunking down any money.  They are way cool and made the job so much easier.

Once I got them installed it really did take less than 5 minutes to level the entire bank of cabinets.  By my self.

Tonight I cut and installed the rest of the base molding and cap around the cabinets.

I also cut and installed the cap down the staircase.

The last thing before priming all this woodwork is to cut and install the base shoe in the tiled areas.

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

And Curved Inside Corners

I mentioned an a previous post that there was an inside corner to be dealt with as well.

This uses the same technique, but requires that you cut the pieces narrower at the front.

And different tools to sand on the inside of the curve, of course.

In this photo there is a single coat of oil-based primer on the base and cap.  I'll probably need to install a shoe as well.

Sunday, June 1, 2014

How to do Curved Moldings

I mentioned in a previous post that there were some curved corners that had to be dealt with.  There are a couple of curved corners in the attic.  They echo a curved corner that's in the kitchen near the door that goes into the dining room.  We also used the curved corners to soften some sharp angles, in particular making the hallway feel more open than it really is.

They are cool, but you can't really run molding around them in the usual way...

The first step was to cut 3/4-inch wide pieces of base board.  Of course, you're going around a curve, so they are not cut at 90-degrees; the back side is narrower than the front.  Once they were all cut to the proper angle, I attached them to the wall using construction adhesive and to their neighbor using gorilla glue - there's just metal mesh lath and plaster behind the curve; no framing to nail into.  Then sand to round-off the joints, fill the gaps, and sand again.

The next step was to install the cap.  Same drill; cutting small pieces at an angle to make the curve.  This was the first one I did, so things didn't quite fit as well as the ones I did later.  It just required more filling and sanding than the others.  ;-)

Note that these curved walls were shaped by hand - they are not entirely constant radius.  That means the angles are slightly different for each piece of molding I cut.  The numbers on each piece indicate how many degrees off perpendicular I cut at each end (i.e., the one marked "3" was cut 3 degrees off perpendicular at each side).

After scraping off the excess glue, sanding, filling, and re-sanding you get something that looks like this photo.  Now it's ready to be vacuumed, tack ragged, and primed.

Special note: The photos are of the three "outside" curves.  There's an "inside" curve as well that I'm still working on.

It's similar, but harder.