Monday, September 21, 2009

Molding or Moulding?

Moulding (as it's called in Canada, Australia and the UK) or Molding (as it's called in the US) can be made from plaster, marble, wood, laminate, plastic, stone or cement. It's used to cover the seams for walls where they meet the ceiling and floor, and to finish the trim around doors and windows, etc... 
There is an extensive glossary of sexy sounding terms to describe shapes, shadows and angles.. astragal, cavetto, chair rail, cove, crown, egg & dart, picture rail, and many more.




A miter box is used to guide the saw blade to cut the proper angles. Fancier ones than my manual wooden one include a power saw and clamps. Manual miter boxes are used with a hand held backsaw. You're probably most familiar with the big wobbly handsaws you saw as a kid--they have large teeth, and are used for cutting lumber. A backsaw is square in shape, has closely spaced teeth, and a straightener across the top of the blade, so that the teeth don't rip the wood with the push and pull motion.

Well, I don't own a backsaw, and my old miter box (shown at left) is an inexpensive wooden one from the hardware store, with 3 grooves---one for 45 degrees, 90 degrees and for straight cuts. As you can see in the pix, the molding is quite simple...it's called convex quarter round, and today I set out to make 45 degree angle cuts.



For this job I used
  • A small handsaw. It's the wrong saw for the job. The teeth are really spaced too far apart, so I just cut carefully and quickly
  • Tape Measure and Pencil
  • Clamps to hold the molding steady inside the box while I cut
  • Sandpaper (100 grade) to smooth any splinters
  • Liquid Nails (I didn't want to split the thin strip of wood by hammering nails into it, or to have to cover countersunk nail holes with wood filler)



My house is old, and is not square...anywhere! So I used a bit of the Liquid Nails to fill in the gap at the joint. In the grand scheme, this was a very, very low end job, and I have no idea why it was on the "punch list" for 8 long years!

But, I've finally crossed it off the list.

Onward!


BeforeAfter

1 comment:

  1. There's no one else in the world that I'd listen to about tools and caulking and moulding (thanks for spelling it the correct way!)....and life and love and being level and plumb! I will be reading every blog and no doubt, one day, you'll address flotsam and jetsam! You're my DIY hero!

    ReplyDelete