Need Trim Help

[Ron In Mactaquac]

Sorry to bother people; it's been awhile since I've been on forum. I'm re-doing the baseboards and interior door trim at Dear Spouse's request. I don't know what I am doing for the most part. If I hire somebody then I won't be able to buy anymore tools.

Baseboards are the problem. How do you transition between rooms where floor surface is 1/2" or 3/4" different? Stairs? Split entry?

We went with corner pieces that stand 2" proud of the baseboard and I think that they look like (h)ell. Suggestions on this - how to avoid them? Transition them?

Anyone have any experience with "The Coper" or something to that effect?
I'm not a total amateur at woodworking but I've done very little trim work.

Please help.

[Frank D.]

Hi Ron,
Not much time right now but I'll try to answer a few Q. quickly.
I agree that corner pieces don,t look good. Outside corners are tough though. I find the best way is to trace with a pencil the footprint of your baseboard on the floor. On outside corners you will have 2 intersecting lines. Then trace the median line going from the corner of the wall to the intersection of your 2 lines. That will give you the angle that you have to tilt the head of the saw when the baseboard is lying flat. Don't measure, use a sliding bevel and transpose the angle to the saw directly. The other angle is with respect to the height of the baseboard. For each piece, use a sliding bevel to measure the angle of the corner of the wall with respect to the floor, then transpose that to the saw: adjust the saw by turning the table so the blade lines up with the sliding bevel. Now you have both angles. Put the baseboard in place (you have to do any inside corners or scarf joints at the other end of the baseboard first) and mark off at the base using the lines you scribed earlier. I cut 1/16 or 1/32" too long then adjust if necessary, or just cut again. To be really safe, make the cut with a 3 or 4-foot sacrificial length of baseboard. When the corner is tight (or when the first piece lines up with the corner of the wall) then repeat the cut on the baseboard that will be installed.
For inside corners:
Cut 45° inside miter:


Trace a pencil line to see the profile:


Cope the profile, undercutting by at least 5 degrees:


Here you can see the undercut. Use a regular saw for 90 degree straight cuts (but still undercut a little):

[Frank D.]

Here's the finished cope, once again you can see how it is undercut:




Use files and rasps to clean up the cope right to the line you traced earlier:


Everything is finished now (filed and rasped):


Then just push the coped baseboard into the other basebord that you have cut stright (butted against the wall); givi it a good push so it squashes everything together nicely (that's why it's important to undercut):


HTH,
Hopefully soemone else can chip in with more info

[Bill Simpson]

Aside from the lack of large gaps, that is exactly how I Cope with the situation. Good job there...

[John in Calgary]

Instead of rasps/files, a friend of mine suggested using a dremel tool to grind the final profile - if your trim is small enough, you don't even need to cut the profile first, you can just grind the cope.

John

[tod evans]

ron, when dealing with floors of a different height i know of three ways to make the base look good, the first is to use the casing of a doorway as the transition point, if the floors change height in a doorway? second is with base blocks, either inside or outside corners these are available at most millwork supply houses or you can make them. the third method is my prefered and that`s to run full width base around the lower of the floors then where the transition takes place trim 5/8 or whatever from the bottom of all the base in the room with the elevated floor so as to have the profiled edge continue uninterupted....02 tod

[Chris in Mount Pearl]

Thanks for posting the pictures Frank.

[Ron In Mactaquac]

Thanks Fellas for the help. Frank, even I can follow your great pictures and I will be using Todd's suggestion for the transition.

The only problem is that I have all the tools to do the job so there isn't an excuse to buy anything !

Again I want to thank everyone who took the time to reply.

[Dave W in Calgary]

Ron : I have used the Coper ( http://www.thecoper.com/ ) to do all the coping on my baseboards and it works great, a real time saver. It takes about a minute to do each cope with the router and a couple of strokes with a small file to get the real small details and your done. I was using mine on prefinished Douglas Fir baseboards. I was sceptical at first but a friend had one and liked it so I decided to try it. I bought one at House of Tools.

[Bill Simpson]

Dave that Coper is the Cat's Meow.... If I had a whole house to do or was pro doer, I'm sure I would get one of those. I watched the whole video and found it to be very interesting. I little much for a few pieces. But thanks for the link and the interesting watch.