Crown molding - crooked walls - HELP! - Woodworking Talk

crownvic02 · 11-12-2007, 01:08 PM

Newbie here trying crown molding for first time. Bought Dewalt DW716 with crown stops.

First corner - took two minutes, little need for caulk, pretty proud of myself.

Second corner on - disaster.

Wall dips in near the ceiling at the corner for one side and not the other. Tried coping but still couldn't get it close? Maybe I am coping wrong or taking the wrong approach so instead of trying to explain what I am doing can someone just tell me what I SHOULD be doing at these corners? (I had to pull the molding away from the wall 3/4" to make the corner fit. so I know there is a better way).

At another corner the ceiling rises up and I have to put in shims to make it match the other corner. (That I don't mind as much because I can hide it)

Just beggin for advice from people that know what they are doing. Searching the web did not help because my walls aren't square and there wasn't enough enough on what to do when they aren't 90 degrees. I think I need to at least buy something to measure the angle of the wall I assume?

Any help is appreciated............

cabinetman · 11-12-2007, 02:02 PM

This site has some good info on technique and measurement charts.

crownvic02 · 11-13-2007, 10:45 AM

Success! Turns out I was skipping a vital step....Drawing two lines, one on the ceiling and one on the wall so that I would know exactly where my molding should go. Its amazing how much you can tilt the molding and still have it look flat against the wall and ceiling. (At least to my novice eyes). Once I drew my lines and determined the angle of my corner I was good to go! Thanks to cabinetman for the link that gave me my mitre angles that corresponded to my crooked corners.

peedo916 · 12-10-2007, 01:22 AM

Hello Crownvic02,
Newcomer to this forum and I read your distress call. Glad all turned out well. Being a trim carpenter for 24 years, I didn't find many walls that were true right angles (walls or ceilings.) The best advice is to learn about coping a joint. This eliminates the wall to wall angle problem. The square (butt) end slips inside the coped joint and can pivot plus or minus the 90 degrees. As for the ceiling, here is a secret I was taught by a Norwegian Master Craftsman years ago. Take a length of crown molding and cut sample inside/outside corners. Make them at least 6" long. Take the two pieces that fit the corner joint you're going to make and dry fit them for exact placement. Make a fine pencil mark below the pieces so when you return with the full length piece, you'll know it fits right. Alway cope one end and the other should be a butt joint. A good system to follow is to leave up the coped sample piece in place temporarily, with the full length piece in hand, you can slide the butt joint end into that corner (like having someone there to hold it in place) and then check the other "coped" end to fit over another sample trim piece (butt joint) on the other end.
Like I said, it's a system and it works very well if you follow it. If you're a right handed person, the cope end is on the right.

joesdad · 12-10-2007, 08:42 PM

Good advice peedo. Crownvic, glad you remedied your problem. There's a lot of great little tricks to putting up crown. When I have a long run of 14ft. or so, I nail the center of the molding first and let the last 30" of it freedog until I'm comfortable with the correct angle of the mating end of the next piece. This gives you a little wiggle room for those pesky hi-lo corners. Instead of having one end committed to it's position and trying to seat your coped end in, you have the flexibility of maneuvering both ends (if needed) for a nice fit.

I also keep a small block in my apron to tap the top or bottom edge of the crown until it's seated nicely.

I crowned two rooms in a new house over the weekend and the first room went up no problems, nice and tight. The second had me cursing everyone from the sheetrocker to the framer to the crappy plantation pine that most primed moldings are made from now.

dpmcreations · 02-09-2008, 06:43 PM

First blame the framer who probably should have stayed home on that morning because he was still drunk and hung over... And then the Sheetrocker who was smoking something funny and tried to help things out... No seriously, it all starts out from the bottom up and normally gets worse.. Having been in the building industry for a long time, I know and understand crookedness.. LOL... Have a great night all...

Spartan_Caver · 04-03-2008, 11:33 AM

JosDad
I too use the block tap approch. These newbes with their fancy DeWalt's with crown stops and compound miter cuts just don't know what is up. Once you learn to work with a hand saw and tri square, then everything after that is a piece of cake.

goingenoan · 05-29-2008, 04:29 AM

I too have suffered the not level, not plumb, out of square, wavy crown mold blues.

I once met a trim carpenter that got so frustrated with a bumpy, wavy old ceiling that he decided to start from scratch by tearing out the sheetrock, adding fur strips to the ceiling and then re-sheetrocking the entire circumference of the ceiling!!!

How's that for diligence/perseverance?

cabinetman · 05-29-2008, 09:08 AM

There's always going to be those areas or conditions that present a challenge. There are times when "What the eye perceives", presents the best solution. Getting ABSOLUTE perfection is not always possible. Sometimes it's the lesser of two evils that makes the best choice.

Darkrubitj · 05-29-2008, 09:42 AM

Joesdad has good info, but I don't just nail the center on long runs, I do it on every piece I hang. Tack the center and get the corners right and then finish nailing. Another thing that I have learned with the Dewalt saws, once you set your saw to start doing a crown job don't change the setting until you finish the crown in that room. You can never get it back to the set that you had and you end up chasing your tail.

YouNGwOOd · 05-29-2008, 10:08 PM

A belt or edgesander can come in very handy, to fine tune your cuts, excpecially on some "crooked walls".

Tdragon · 07-06-2008, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by joesdad

When I have a long run of 14ft. or so, I nail the center of the molding first and let the last 30" of it freedog until I'm comfortable with the correct angle of the mating end of the next piece. This gives you a little wiggle room for those pesky hi-lo corners. Instead of having one end committed to it's position and trying to seat your coped end in, you have the flexibility of maneuvering both ends (if needed) for a nice fit.

Hey joesdad,
I was wondering if you could clarify more on how you do this? I'm new to trimming and carpentry in general for the most part. Do I understand correctly that you nail up the piece first, then (cut, file, etc.) the ends until you get what you want. Or do you keep taking it down to cut it?
Thanks for the help.