Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Box O'Moulding

With the useasonably warm weather we've been having, my thoughts are turning to spring.

And every spring, I take an inventory of and vow to complete the mountainous list of unfinished projects in the house.

One project, a tall bookcase built and installed a year and a half ago, has yet to receive its crown moulding.

It's functional and loaded with books, but it was never meant to have a pine accent piece along the top edge.

A few years ago, any time I had to cut moulding, I started dropping offcuts into a box. Now when a project calls for crown moulding, rather than sketch something or refer to books, I stack a few pieces together until the right look is achieved.

It helps if you have pieces with the moulding profile cut along one edge and one end. That way, you can see how it will look on the corner of your project. 


You can also view the stacked profile by using a board of contrasting color as an upright stop.



Since the box o' moulding is now sitting on my workbench and staring at me, I have no excuse not to finish that bookcase . . . unless, of course, winter decides it's not through with us yet.

14 comments:

Nick Brygidyr said...

Awesome stuff!

I have a box in the shop too...box-o-scraps...i think i will have a few dovetailed boxes in the works =D

Anonymous said...

Great idea. I always struggle to visualize stacked mouldings. Have you ever done a post on making the mouldings using a sticking board? I would like to see that.

johnjoiner said...

Why isn't your off-cut box full of saw dust and shavings like mine? ;-)

Unknown said...

Great Idea! I will have to start collecting molding cutoffs.

Bob

Kari Hultman said...

Shannon, I've never used a sticking board, but Dan Klauser of dans-woodshop.blogspot.com has. If you haven't seen his site, I highly recommend it.

Ethan said...

VC,

That's such a simple, yet incredibly cool, idea... Those are usually the best, aren't they?

Anonymous said...

Howdy VC,
have a look here for some useful theory on moldings:
http://www.thisiscarpentry.com/

Page 10...

woodchippy said...

Hi Kari, i know this is not really relevant to your post, but i've just set up a blog www.woodchippy.blogspot.com and thought you might be interested in having a look. Actually, you could be the first person ever to check it and for that matter, maybe the only person!.
cheers,
lloyd.

P.S. Thanks for the carving instruction.

Kari Hultman said...

Ethan, that is usually the case, for sure.

InsideBevel, thanks for the link. Someone else had sent that to me, too, and even though it's mainly geared toward carpentry, there is a lot of great info for woodworkers as well. Especially the article on moulding. Thanks!

Woodchippy, have fun writing your blog! That's a monster bandsaw you got...for FREE, no less.

Anonymous said...

Are those scorch marks on the end grain?

Must have been WORKING that plane! Maybe about 3000 strokes per minute?

Kari Hultman said...

Why yes they are, Wol. How observant of you! ; )

JoshJacoby said...

I thin it is good work. If you really want to take it to the next level, you could try a finger joint instead of a butt joint, but it takes a router and a lot of practice.

They use the finger joints on Box Beams to keep the join 100 percent invisible. I like it for cabinet craft for the same reason. It might not be commercially viable, but for an afficianado, why not?

Anonymous said...

Hi Kari.

Sorry for my rather cryptic post - I got here from Dan's Shop where, of course, he makes everything by hand. I thought I was being clever by spotting the evidence of a machine tool! Whoops.

And I'm a cabinet maker by occupation, so it wasn't particularly observant. Scorch marks are the enemy on an unpainted job! :)

(And now I'm chatting completely off-topic! But nice blog - I wish I had more opportunity for this sort of .... whimsical work! Its mostly fitted furniture that I make - top quality and some very nice jobs, but repetitive. Ah well.)

Kari Hultman said...

Wol, I thought your comment was funny! lol
You should add a link to your site when you post a comment. :o)