Ok, friend of mine swears each time he sees a crown molding job going in the carp is mitering the inside corners instead of coping. He tells me “thats what everyone does now” and the corners look tighter this way.
I strongly disagree.
Thoughts from anyone?
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Replies
Ask him if he is looking at stain or paint grade jobs and how much caulk he uses.
Paint jobs and he's a "caulk the hell out of it" guy
I still like to cope all my joints, even when using MDF crown. I'm kind of old fashioned that way. I think fitting the joint is a lot more forgiving when coping- with miters, you have to figure out each angle if the corner's not a true 90 deg and make that adjustment on the cut. And coped joints will stay tighter as a house moves.
I was on a job recently where another crew was doing the crown, and they were mitering. They glued the joint with polyurethane construction adhesive, and glued the crown to the wall near the joint. It looked pretty good, but I don't know how it'll hold up as the house settles.
I'm fairly fast at coping, The one guy I sometimes work with and I can put up several hundred feet of crown in a day. I cut and cope, and he nails and caulks.
Personally I think coping inside corner's is the best practice.
the only time I've seen that disputed was by Tom Silvia on This Old House, and only in an instance where you can glue and pin the inside corner together prior to installting such as on a piece of furniture etc.
Mitering crown? Yuck. Once you get halfway decent at coping you can fly with it. Some guys have a hard time with the back-cutting that is necessary. Cope fer sure.
This 51 year old long time carpenter / builder says COPE.
You know there is trouble when your trim man carries a caulk gun with him while running trim.
Cope.
I carry a caulk gun for trim.
But it's to seal against the walls and ceiling. I usually work for homeowners in homes where crown is being added. It looks so much better when that dark line at the top and bottom disappears.
I agree about caulking the trim, a huge improvement over the tattletale line. Particularly if the goal is for the work to pass for original. I also prefer to use a putty knife rather than a finger because it leaves a flat face above the crown that when painted will pass as original.
Another vote for coping inside corners..... but it's just from a framer. ;)
Cope.
Cope
If it wasn’t for the Bank Payments,
Interest, Taxes, Wages, and Fuel Costs,
I wouldn’t have to charge you!!
Standard crowns I would always cope.
Most of the crown profiles I see lalely can't be coped , so they get mitered.
Love the Bosch angle finder!
Cope
Both.
there's nothing wrong with mitering paint grade.
painter's gonna caulk it anyways ... if U can get a tight as a gnats a$$ miter ... and glue it ... then the painter is gonna do his job and caulk that tiny little line ...
what's bad about that?
there's skill in learning how to miter correctly just as there is with using a coping saw. Me ... I usually cope ... just because I like it. But ... I do sub work as well as my own jobs ... and if I'm subbing a whole house/addition of trim ... paint grade ... espectaiil MDF ... it'll be mitered and caulked. And ... I do carry a caulking gun with me ... because unless my painter is the guy following me ... I don't trust a painter with a heavy trigger finger to "not" fill my tight joints with "too much" caulk. Nice tight caulk line ... best of both worlds.
For raw stain grade work ... 99% of the time ... it's all coped.
Lotsa my trim work is prefinished cabinet stock ... and those miters ... inside and out ... are mitered. Most are preassembled/glued and pin nailed ... or screwed ... before they are installed as a unit. Pretty much furniture grade results ... with very little nails to fill. The 23g pin nails disappear ... and the hand full of 18g holes placed stratigically are as hidden as possible.
I've hung crown in old crooked/wavy plaster houses where the only way to keep the crown to the wall was to pin with 15g and then counter sink drywall screws! Trust me ... knowing my painter is going to hide screw heads ... I don't think twice about mitering corners.
Jeff
Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa
Lotsa my trim work is prefinished cabinet stock ... and those miters ... inside and out ... are mitered.
Well; now there's 2 of us.
I was hesitant to post such as my flamesuit is getting a new coat of retardent this week!
I am NOT coping pre-assembled two and three piece crown thank you very much.
EricIt's Never Too Late To Become What You Might Have Been
[email protected]
Keep reading, Eric. There are three of us.
Allen in Boulder Creek
Make it at least 4. Cope bases, but not crowns. Most of the crown seem to be the fancy patterned stuff (aka: carved or designer moldings) and can be out out of anything from oak to plastic coated foam. A surprising amount goes up with plinths (either supply by the molding manufacturer, or made on-site). If the corner can be glued up on-the-floor, all the better; in either case for mitred inside corners, let the last foot of the crown float (i.e. start nailing and/or gluing about 12 inches away from the corner joint) so that you can wedge behind it to tightrn the joint as you make it and to lesson the chance of wall movement pulling apart the joint. We use painters caulk to close the gaps to the wall and ceiling.Edited to add, I see a lot more of the mitre crowd stepped forward as I read on; another case of no right answers, doing your way well is what counts.
.
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
Edited 12/3/2005 11:08 am ET by PhillGiles
Eric
Lotsa my trim work is prefinished cabinet stock ... and those miters ... inside and out ... are mitered.
If I was putting prefinished crown on cabs I wouldn't cope either, as you and Jeff have stated.
I look at that like I do furniture and I wouldn't cope crown on a piece of furniture.
I've seen some high end houses with finish carps that know what they are doing and I've seen them miter inside, good enough for me if they think its A-OK.
I still cope finished or unfinished on walls, force of habit I guess.
I'd never burry an electric box though!
Doug
I'd never burry an electric box though!
Guess that one will be around a while eh?? LOL
I've been using Gorilla glue (carefully) on all my joints. I had to take something apart (non crown) that I had glued up with it.............yeah right, get out the dynomite!!It's Never Too Late To Become What You Might Have Been
[email protected]
I've done a fair amount of the maple/oak/cherry crown that comes with cabinets. When it's running around the tops of boxes (not backed up to drywall like room crown) I will miter it also. A lot of the time it's square backed, not flat, which makes that easier.
Moon/ Eric/Doug/ Everyone else ...
does anyone else do this little trick?
for prefinished cab stock ... inside mitered corners ...
I run a 1/8th drill bit thru the meat of the back of that miter ...
either up on the cabs ... when there's "reach around room" ... or when prebuilding a run of jigs and jobs ...
then .. drive a 1 5/8th drywall screw thru the back of the miter ... sucking it all tight.
holds tighter than any finish gun nail ... plus .. really sucks it tight. Glue and screw ...
or as my buddy Joe would say ... "top secret double back screw" ...
Jeff Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa
Yes Jeff, I also do the "top secret double back screw" trick. especially when doing prefinished crown atop cabinets. Glad to know I'm not just crazy.
I agree with the posters who say "it's not all black and white". There are situations where coping is appropriate, and situations that call for mitering. I have seen some really butchered cope joints done by a carpenter who was trying to prove that he could cope "just as fast" as someone who was mitering.
I have also found that in certain regions of the country (Hi Doug!) they will laugh you off the jobsite if you even show up with a coping saw. Of course these places do pretty much exclusively painted trim.
I will cope stain grade crown when it is called for, but time is money when doing these cheap paint grade crackerboxes. And yes, when I do that, I also caulk my own joints. Why give the painter a chance to make your good work look like a bunch of mounds of caulk?" If I were a carpenter"
Interesting idea, never tried it but I do try to get a couple of ails in through the back.
Or I'll wedge it together tight with a shim or a stick from the ceiling till the glue is dry.
That is how I do 45 deg, wall cabs with crown over. I haven't figured a way to get a fastener in from behind. Sometimes I glue a cuople of small blocks that cross over each other on the back of the joint.
Eric[email protected]
It's Never Too Late To Become What You Might Have Been
In my earlier reply, I described how we glued, biscuited and screwed the inside corners on 6" black walnut crown, on tables we built for the project. We had about half-a-mile (of crown) to run, so it was worth the trouble. I don't build special tables now, but especially around cabinets, I'll make all my inside joints up before I hang the crown. If it is small, glue and pin nails. If it's big and there's room, you bet I put a few screws in it. Closing up the joint is just part of fitting a corner, to me. I like to see all of the profiles corners, planes, etc. lining up perfectly. That's a lot easier to do on a table in front of you than up on the wall.
Allen in Boulder Creek
Take a look at the pic. We're doing stuff like this starting Monday. Quite a few corners with windows tight to the corners and the head trim, sort of a flat crown, meeting above.
Cope or miter?
BUTT, why miter unless you want to see that little miter on the bottom side where they meet.
If I'm running base that is simple 1 X I dont miter, just butt it.
Doug
In butt/cope
Out mitre[email protected]
It's Never Too Late To Become What You Might Have Been
Yea, I should have mentioned miter the outside!
Cant assume anything on here!
Jeff
Yea, I put a screw in but never thought of the drilling the hole first! I just reach back their and predrill while the crown is already there.
I like your idea better, consider it stolen!
Doug
Pre-drill with a countersink bit, and your screw head will flush out nice with the face of the wood...if that matters to you. That's the way I do it.
Allen in Boulder Creek
I've always coped, and still do on paint grade, until I helped run a half a mile of black walnut crown in a 17,000 sq. ft. house at Lake Tahoe. Here's how we ran the crown there, and the way I do now on high end crown:
We built a couple of big tables to use for jigs, and set it up so we could fit our inside corners, and we fit them up perfectly, glued, biscuited, and screwed them together. Sometimes we would fit 3 or 4 short runs together, and put it all up as a unit. We ran it to a line we chalked, and ran it straight as an arrow, not following the contours of the wall. The plaster guys used our crown as their line to work to.
Lots of outside corners were fitted at the table, but most of them we did on the wall, as that's where we made most of our connections. I carried a dollar bill around in my shirt pocket, and if I could slide the corner of it anywhere into a fit I'd made, it wasn't tight enough.
I'm a pretty good hand at coping, but I challenge anyone to cope inside corners on black walnut, and make them fit as nicely as we did. And they will always be tight, no matter what the rest of the house does.
I ran some nice maple crown in a kitchen for some folks a few weeks ago. The longest piece was probably 6 feet long, the room was so chopped up. I fit all the inside corners at the horses, glued and pin nailed them together, then put them up.
Allen in Boulder Creek
In 90% of the cases I cope inside miters simply because I can cut it slightly long and spring it into place and over time the joint has a better chance of staying tight. Paint grade is a different story however on a large profile I'll still cope.
The answer is not black or white, right or wrong.
Carpentetrs don't react, they adapt.
Personaly, I like to cope with a slight back cut so the leading edge fits tight. Maybe the leading edge of the cope digs slightly or compresses slightly for that tight fit.
The leading edge of an MDF cope has zero strength so I miter MDF crown. The glue will hold it.
I miter foam crown.
I cope all inside crown corners if the material is wood and it fits to a ceiling.
I miter cabinet crown inside and out.
I miter any crown that has an exposed top.
I miter pre finished crown.
I cope base but always mitre crown! I think a properly set up slide saw with a thin kerf 100 tooth (sharp carbide blade) does a great job! Just like making a piano if you love finishing! Don't need any caulking either--leave that to log cabin builders.
Lets get a touch of reality here. All the coping talk sounds like the old timey craftsman way. But reality is that tiime is money and knowledge and experience is what makes the difference. I've seen cope joints that ring with the " putty and paint will make it what it ain't. A truly experienced craftsman can fly with mitered joints and produce a premium job, and I'm not talking about a production home trimmer.
I've done architectural millwork in up to 50 mil. $ estates and used mitered joints, tighter than dicks hat band. A good man can start out with a couple 18" sample pcs. and just by holding up to an I S corner, know what adjustments to make for a good cut, or as you get some drops as you progress, a couple at slightly off angles. Although one of the best investments I've made is a Bosch Dig. angle finder, it's all in experience and being a professional ( experience and quality consciousness being the key words ). Surely though for the homeowner or the occasional do'er where time isn't inportant and experience is mim., cope might well be the way to go, along with the caulk.
Roger