Replies

1. 
   Guest_ | May 18, 1999 02:56am | #1

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   Someone showed me this site a few weeks ago www2.fwi.com/~krumy/ it has some pretty good illustrations on copeing inside corners, which is how i do it. You can miter them if you want, just measure the wall and cut to the long point of the miter. Maybe leave it a little long and make a few test fits. If the fire place sits in the corner at 45 deg the cuts should be 22 1/2 around it. If you can stand the base up in the saw you can miter either way, otherwise you will have to spin it around. to join 2 pieces on a long wall use a scarf joint and make it over a stud. Practice on some scrap, and keep your fingers away from the blade.

2. 
   dw_ | May 19, 1999 12:08pm | #2

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   If the corners involving the mantle are not 22.5 for some reason and you still need to know the center, here is one way. It requires about $6.00 worth of tools, but you'll use them again and again. Go out to your local hardware storeand get a bevel guage-it looks like an extremely dull folding knife with a wing nut on it. Also pick up a drafting compass, that thing with a pencil as one leg and a sharp point as the other, used for drawing arcs and circles.
   Put the bevel guage in the corner and tighten the knob. Now you've got the exact angle of the mantle-wall corner. Transfer the angle onto a scrap board by placing the thick part of the bevel guage against the board and tracing one side of the thin blade all the way down to where the bevel gauge meets the board. Take your compass and pull the legs apart about five or six inches. Place the point where the traced line from the bevel guage meets the edge of the board. Draw an arc from the edge of the board all the way around, through the traced line from the bevel gauge.Call this Arc 1 Without changing the width of the compass, move the pointed end to the intersection of Arc 1 and the traced line from the bevel gauge. Draw a circle. Without changing the width of the compass, move the point to where Arc 1 touched the edge of the wood. Draw a semi-circle from wood edge to wood edge. Now take a straight edge and line up the point where the traced line from the bevel gauge met the edge of the board , and the point where the circle and the semi-circle cross each other. They will almost certainly cross each other at two places, but they will be in the same line. Trace the edge of your straight edge. This line is the center of your angle. You can use this basic process to bisect any angle. There are refinements and adjustments for angles over ninety degrees, but they are all obvious once you've got the basic idea. This is a pain the first time, but good it you are in a room with a lot of random angles or working high up where cutting and fitting and recutting and refitting and recutting again means five miles of ladder climbing...uphill both ways. Hope that helps-DW

1. 
   dw_ | May 19, 1999 12:10pm | #3

   *Jeez, that was tedious. Try this old piece of advice instead..."putty and paint make a carpenter what he aint"...

3. 
   Jerry_Townsley | May 19, 1999 12:10pm | #4

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   Sir, I have a couple of questions on Cove Base Molding, I do have a Compound Miter Saw. First how do I measure and mark for a Corner 45 deg cut. So the far corner will not be short. Second I installed a Fire Place Mantel in this same room in the corner and it gos to the celling, how do I find the Angle to cut? In other words I have Three corners at 90 deg. witch will take a 45 deg. cut and two UNKNOWN at the mantel in the corner. And do I have to turn the molding back wards to make my left cut. Also how to I make the cut to Splice the middle Thanks for any help.