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The best lessons are the hardest earned. While those joints could be improved with a carveable/ structural wood filler, the only way to make them look good is to start over.

 

By starting over I mean you’re into new stock. Use the old stuff to figure out the angles before making cuts on the new stock.

 

Wood putty no, bondo yes but agree the repairs are for small tiny imperfections, not gross miss cuts, it's a do over!

 

You could remove the caulk and use a filler to shape the voids. More than once I've made bad carpentry look acceptable with filler. I usually use a setting compound like Durabond. The filler won't be as durable as the wood. As noted above, replacing with correctly mitered trim is best.

 

It eould take just as long to try to hide that with goop as it would to remove it and do it correctly.
There are enough people in the world who think caulking is used in place of craftsmanship.
The motto of the fly-by-night hack carpenter is "Tried my best and caulked the rest."
Don't be that guy.

 

an old painter saying
'a little putty and caulk makes a a carpenter what he's not'

 

So this outside corner is not 90*. I guess first, I need to lookup how to measure this angle. Maybe it’s only 85*. Both mitres are now 45*, making my molding’s angle too large and causing that gap when the molding is attached to the wall.

if the actual angle is 85*, I can remove just one piece, subtract 45 from 85 and then cut the new mitre at 40* and it should all fit.

just thinking out loud. A new 40* would theoretically work right? I just need to measure the corner’s actual angle.

 

Drywall corners, inside or out, are NEVER 90 degrees!

The framing behind them is imperfect (this will impact plumb too), and joint compound has build the angle out.

No need to measure. You can see that angle is sharper than a 90. Use scrap stock as template stock and begin with 46 degree cuts.

Your miter saw, however, will only bevel to 45. You’ll have to use a shim underneath your stock on the saw to sharpen the cut angle.

Also, it’s more than likely a compound miter cut.

Edit: No, rip it all out and start over. Those joints are a mile apart, trying to work with what’s there will not have an acceptable outcome.

 

Your miter saw, however, will only bevel to 45. You’ll have to use a shim underneath your stock on the saw to sharpen the cut angle.

I currently own three miter saws and they can all
miter to at least 50 degrees in both directions.
One will miter up to 60 degrees on the right side.
Maybe this is your first rodeo.

 

The left piece in post #1 is too short. Your miter (post #3) isn't going to come together when the bottom edge is laying on 1/4" paneling and the top edge is not. You use rabbeted chair moulding for something like that. The rabbet is a notch that fits over the paneling.

 

This molding actually does have that rabbit notch. Must be that the walls are not plumb. Which evidently would be normal.

 

Practice with some scrap until you like it .
Inside corners should be coped and the eliminates that issue.
Cut your pieces a smidge long and shave it a little at a time until you get the perfect fit.

 

Get a multi-tool to cut the trim square and straight, then install inside and outside plinth blocks - it'll look elegant.

 

He has chair rail to do

 

If they are rabbeted then maybe you weren't holding it on the saw correctly as you cut them. Because the cut looks tipped. They are each probably closer to 49 degrees, but that doesn't explain why it is gapped open more at the bottom than the top. Either you had a bevel on the saw when you made the cut... you weren't holding it plumb when you cut it... or the rabbet isn't the right depth and it's tipped as it sits on the wall. The flat part of the molding should be perfectly plumb.

Also looks like you tried to cope it. You don't cope outside corners.

 

My main line of work was trim and cabinetry. For most trimwork you dont even need a tape measure. You use the structure or previous piece of trim to mark your cut.
Judging from that base, you're cutting on the wrong side of the line or rushing the cut. Once the piece is close just take small cuts and keep test fitting. Trying to measure then take one pass on the miter saw will never work.

Buy a trim angle finder, it will give you the wall angle and the saw setting.

 

For the chair rail, I just tried Tommy Silva’s method:

That worked really well, at least with the scrap wood, with just one small issue. I needed to set my mitre saw to 46 or maybe 47, but it maxes at 45. So I guess I need to rig a simple jig to make those mitres, right?

 

The sheetrock corner looks normal. Your problem is the trim is cut too short, and this cut is not 90*. The trim on the right was not placed against the miter saw fence properly.

 

It looks like you held the moulded face against the miter fence?

 

It looks to me like the OP removed the trim that was already on the wall and added the beadboard and then re-applied the trim over the paneling. It can work on some walls but not on all. The chair rail needs to be rabbeted out so it can fit flat against the wall. The baseboard has to be re-done.

 

See post #13.

To the op.... this is https://images.thdstatic.com/produc...e2-4ed1-9e53-617ac4cbb1ce/svn/white-house-of-fara-chair-rail-w275mdf-64_100.jpg

what the rabbet profile would look like.

 

If that chair rail is rabbeted I'm not seeing it .

 

Any ideas how I might fix this without pulling the molding off and re-cutting?

That's the only way to fix it correctly.

 

Yeah thanks for the replies. Pretty much what I figured. Full disclosure, we've been having tradesmen come in, do some work, then I've been doing a little here and there as well, on a bathroom makeover. I just do the little stuff. Time is the biggest constraint, in part because I'm not a tradesman so everything takes me twice as long - have to first look stuff up on the internet, try it, make a mistake, then look up how to fix it.

This trim was done by a really nice person who apparently has not done a lot of trim work - which we didn't know and are finding out the hard way.

I think a good practice is just to dry fit the pieces before fixing them to the wall. The fella who did the chair-rail evidently did not do that. Speaking of fixing things to the wall, I think he used construction adhesive to attach the tim to the drywall. I'll find out on Friday. We have a lot of really slopping joins (no coping on the inside corners, crooked cuts, and lots and lots of caulk) and I'd like to redo all of it. I think removing what's been installed is going to cause some damage.

For the chair rail corner above, I did test it on scrap wood of the appropriate lengths and 45 degree angle cuts work.

 

Looks like yours was his first attempt at trim work. Not coping inside corners is not a big deal, if you cut a neat miter.