[Leah Frances]

1. Popular Mechanics isn't really a good source for.... anything.

2. What Willie T said.

 

[Leah Frances]

Undoubtedly the correctly angled cut is important. But there is something else equally critical. And that is making sure you get each piece of molding up on the wall in the same orientation as all the others in the room.

This is especially more critical as the molding size increases. It is really easy to get molding pieces up on a wall, totally mismatched to the angle of another piece coming around the corner... a piece that HAS to meet it correctly.

The pictures below show a homemade tool that makes that task easier.

I wish I could give proper credit to the person who first posted pictures of this 'tool', but I just plain forget who it was. Still, I made a tool like they showed, and use it all the time.

I think it's a pic from a taunton's book. I use the same sort of thing. I also make one the height of the room to hold up the end of a long piece of molding when I'm installing alone.

 

[Leah Frances]

NIce tools Willie. Unfortunately, I'm mostly working with masonry walls. They don't hold nails/screws very well. :laughing: That's why I use the prop stick.

Mostly I'm gluing to walls and fixing with nails to ceiling joists. Works pretty well and has held up over several heating/cooling seasons.

 

[Leah Frances]

does anyone know of the best online "tips sheet" on crown molding? Tons of great tips here from y'all, but would be nice to have a consolidated set.

These can be found in books, online, written in the sawdust of time by our forefathers...... or written in How-To's on this site by ambitious newbies looking to spread the knowledge they gain through their experience (hint. hint).

I have read several articles from Tauntons, bought books about just crown molding, consulted with helpful carpenters who taught me aphorisms (upside down and backwards... ). I've revisited high-school geometry and 'calculated' the perfect angles to set my miter saw.

And none of this meant a damn thing the first time I tried to install crown molding in my old house.

None of the illustrations or mathematics prepared me to deal with rooms that scoff at the notion that a corner should be 90 degrees; that rooms should be rectangles - most of mine are really parallelograms. Or that it is pointless to install perfectly level crown molding in a room which has a wall height that varies several inches over the length of the wall. In the end... I just end up doing what 'looks' right to my eye.

Bottom line:

Like all things in life, it takes knowledge + practice to = skill.

You can buy plenty of cheap wood stock and practice, practice, practice. And the lessons still won't really stick until you mess up your last piece of really nice hardwood crown molding.

Read more, play with your saw, don't be afraid to notate on your molding in pencil, lather, rinse, repeat.