Ok, This is to measure the outside face of the trim.
Because you are cutting two outside corners you need the length of the wall plus twice the thickness of the trim. If this is a 7 foot wall and the trim is 3/4ths thick you need a piece 7 feet, one and a half inches long from tip to tip. The other way you might measure it is to put the two mating pieces at each end into place then measure from the outside of one to the outside of the other. Finally double check that the face you want is in the correct orientation, I have cut the opposite angle to the one I wanted by losing the orientation of the board. The miter saw if you have one is the correct choice, take care to clear any dust or debris from the table before placing your board, a small amount can alter the angle quit a bit. Coping a cut is where you cut the end of a board the shape of the profile of the board you are mating with. This has no meaning if the boards are flat and square but often there are shapes to the face. The shape can be scribed however this does not work well for the blind, instead, and the way many craftsmen do it is to cut a 45 degree on the face of the trim. the point where the angle meets the face gives you a line you can easily feel. A coping saw is a fine thin bladed saw on a frame which permits a tight turn. Always buy extra blades, they are easily broken. You cut the mitered end off the board by following the point where the angle meets the flat face. The best way is to tilt the saw a little toward the rear of the board so that you are under cutting the end just a little so that a fairly sharp fine edge meets the face of the mating trim. This assures an absolutely tight joint.This is for inside corners. Hope this answers who ever was asking about coping. ----- Original Message ----- From: Scott Howell To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, July 07, 2008 8:36 AM Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] mitering trim Owch, your killing me my friend. Ok, let me explain a bit more. This room currently has no baseboards at all, they were all pulled and stupid me tossed them out or I could have used them as a template. So, what I'm doing is measuring with a ruler on the length of this piece of wall. This wall is basically what separates two stairwells. So, the length from corner to corner is 6 and 3/4 inches. In this case, these are two outside corners. So, if this were a simple straight cut, I'd measure on the saw the length and just cut. However, because I want a 45-degree angle, it would seem that you'd nearly have to include some length for that angle so it juts out far enough to mate up with the other pieces at either end that are also cut at a 45-degree angle. I agree you have to take into consideration the width of the blade etc. I imagine and not being a math wiz at all, the simple tilting of the blade from a 0 position to a 45-degree position would mean you'd have to add on some extra in order to compensate for the angled cut or am I just full of crap and have no clue what I'm talking about. I'm not using my table saw, I don't see this as a job for that, I instead am using my miter saw. Additionally, are you saying a coping saw might help with the inside corners? Can a blind person effectively use a coping saw? I thought I had seen a post that said it would be very difficult for a blind person to use a coping saw. Being as I'm not an expert on anything woodworking related, but trying to learn, I'm in no position to say one way or the other on coping saws and their use. So, I'm open to any ideas, but would of course like to make as few trips from the basement to the saw work location. tnx On Jul 6, 2008, at 7:44 PM, Dale Leavens wrote: > Where are you mitering to? > > The usual way to fit baseboards is to cope the inside corners and > only miter the outside corners. The next problem is setting the saw > correctly. Sighted people have to worry about parallax, that is, > looking straight on at a ruler or the line marked on stock to be > cut. We have another problem, the edge of a tape measure or even a > story stick has some thickness and the kerf of a saw blade has some > thickness more than the body of the blade. Then, are you measuring > to the same side of the blade? Not a silly question but an easy > enough error to make and modern carbide blades take out nearly an > eight of an inch of material when they cut. Finally, if you are > using a talking tape measure you are only accurate to within a 16th > of an inch. add to that you could be measuring on the shy side of > the 16th and transferring to the proud side of the 16th and you > could be off nearly an eighth. Add that to the mating piece and you > could be off nearly a quarter of an inch. > > Even professionals though do often sneak up on a cut with power > equipment. > > If measuring inside corner to inside corner then the narrowest > dimension over the width of the trim is the correct measure on the > long (back) side. If you are using the face then you must subtract > twice the thickness of the trim material. Measuring the face though > is very difficult to do accurately because you can't get your > measuring device snug into the angle where the tip of the teeth meet > the board. Sighted people look down to the point where the teeth > will be just clipping off the pencil line and they will use a very > sharp pencil to draw a very thin crisp line. > > At the other side, because the teeth attack on the outer angle your > measuring device will either be nearly the thickness of the blade > away from where the outer edge will shave off the wood or it will be > the thickness of the blade too short, a distance increased by the 45 > degree angle which is the root of the sum of the squares of which > the thickness of the blade forms the hypotenuse. > > Eventually though you do learn to fudge the measure a little to get > you very close. With a good miter saw or well tuned and highly > accurate table saw and the material well fixed down it is possible > to shave a whisker off of a cut which brings us back to that > recently and lengthy discussion of inexpensive table saws. It > doesn't take long to spend several hundred dollars on waste material. > > ----- Original Message ----- From: Scott Howell > To: [email protected] > Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2008 2:35 PM > Subject: [BlindHandyMan] mitering trim > ,Folks, I'm in the process of cutting baseboard and the like to > install > in the living room after the flooring project. Now for some reason I > just can't seem to get this baseboard cut properly. I have lets say a > measurement of 6 3/4 and I place the baseboard on the miter saw and I > have tried both measuring with the blade at a 0 angle and then also at > the proper 45 degree angle. In both cases it seems that it's just not > coming out right, it comes out to short. So, can someone offer some > tips on mitering trim so when I cut the pieces, I get the 6 3/4 I need > and the ends will stick out enough to mate up with the other 45-degree > angles to cover the corner? If this didn't make sense, please let me > know. > I'd like to get this right and not waste a lot of material. > > tnx > > Scott Howell > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > ---------------------------------------------------------- > > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG. > Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 270.4.5/1537 - Release Date: > 7/6/2008 5:26 AM > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > Scott Howell [EMAIL PROTECTED] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 270.4.6/1538 - Release Date: 7/7/2008 7:40 AM [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
