But there are two problems with that approach.įirst, you shouldn’t attempt to position the crown so that it’s flat against the fence and the base of the saw. When I first started installing crown molding, I was taught to place the molding in position, “upside down and backwards,” in my miter saw, then rock it until it was bedded flat against the base of the saw and the fence, too! Then draw a line across the bottom of the crown (that’s the top when it’s upside down in your saw) marking the miter saw fence, and try to hold the crown at that line while cutting it. So how do we make certain that our preparatory miter for a cope cut is perfect? Remember to think of the ceiling projection as the thickness of the crown if it were solid. With solid crown and baseboard, it’s easy to measure the right length of the miter-it needs to equal the thickness with sprung crown, you need to know the ceiling projection in order to be able to measure the length of the miter cut. To find out which cut is correct we need to measure each piece. On baseboard, it’s easy to notice a poorly cut miter on sprung crown, it’s tough to see if the cut is correct.Īt presentations and carpentry clinics, I call this a shell game: can you spot the correct cut? Here we have three miter cuts all done at 45 degrees. Now let’s go back to the first sentence in this article: How many of us have cut a sprung crown miter and noticed that the cut was off? I mean, from just looking at the miter, not the joint. At this point, I think it is important to stress what the word “cope” actually means: this isn’t a psychology class or a self-help book in carpentry (and in life, too!) we don’t cope with molding, we cope to molding-we cut molding, shelving, countertops, decking, casing, and cabinets so that they fit to other surfaces or features. deep, exactly the thickness of the molding, and the joint will fit perfectly every time. Now imagine a cope cut following that miter: the cope will be precisely 3/4-in. deep from the long point at the back of the molding, to the short point at the front of the molding. thick, then the base of the triangle must be 3/4-in. Remember back to high school math: in a 45-degree right triangle, both sides are equal. If you look at the bottom of the base with a miter cut, you can easily visualize a 45-degree right triangle. However, that’s not the case with a cope joint. When we cut a 45-degree miter joint on baseboard and discover it doesn’t close because the walls aren’t square, there’s no choice but to re-cut the miter. Cut a miter too short-well, you all know what that means-cut a brand new piece. If a mitered molding is too long, the long point will bury itself in the drywall, making it impossible to mate the miter joint. If you do cut miters for inside corners, each piece must be cut precisely the right angle and length. short? No problem! A cope will cover all of it but the very bottom edge. And if you cut that square end a 1/16-in. Cut a cope a little long and snap it in place-it will close up even tighter. The joinery is tighter, and coping is faster than mitering. This is why progressive carpenters who care about craftsmanship, as well as production finish carpentry crews, cope all inside corners. out of square.Ī cope joint can still close tightly, even if the ceiling is out, too. The mockup I designed in the previous video that Gary used proves that-with a slight adjustment-a cope joint will accommodate a corner that is 2 degrees out of square, and 2 degrees over a 12-ft. Sure, those are fair points to make, but cope joints solve nearly all those problems! To prove my point, I built a mockup corner with a moveable wall, which demonstrates conclusively that a proficient trim carpenter can overcome a lot of jobsite chaos. I’ve heard all kinds of reasons why cope joints won’t close up tight: The framing sucked the walls were out of square, the building was 200 years old, or most often, the sheetrocker was a slob. This cope is open on the bottom because the preparatory miter was cut incorrectly! (Note: Click any image to enlarge)
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