Crown Molding Cheat Sheet

Is this help for anyone?

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  • Total voters
    11

Pete Cal

Member
Messages
2
Location
Amherst NY
This summer my son and I were going to put up some crown molding. Neither of us had done it before. And, neither of us had ever touched a miter saw before. We did a lot of searching and found a lot of information about crown molding but there was always something missing. We just couldn't find everything we needed in one place.

So, we constructed a cheat sheet that put everything we needed in one place.
(1) All the joints we planned to make.
(2) How to set the saw for each cut
(3) Which piece is the good one after the cut.
(4) We decided to use coped joints for nostalgia reasons


We think it is a lot of good information in one place. Since I have gotten a lot of good information from this forum over the years I though we should give back a little. So, please see the attached image. We hope this can be of some use to other amateurs like us.

For all of you that have real experience, please check to make sure this is correct. In particular the Bull section. We didn't know we needed that until we were doing an outside corner and discovered a fan grill was in the way. We did the Bull by the seat of our pants and wrote it on our sheet. Later I threw away that sheet so I had to recreate the Bull from memory for this image. We already returned the miter saw so I couldn't test my recreation.

We hope this helps others.

Comments and corrections please.

Thanks

PeteCrownMoldingCuts.jpg
 
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Pete, looks like a useful sheet. I did some Bull corners on my kitchen but where they ended at a 45 instead of a 90. Have some pictures of the final project? Would love to see it.

BTW...Welcome to the family! :wave:
 
Hi Pete. Welcome aboard. Glad you found us. Nice work on the sheet, but I'm not much of a trim carpenter so can't offer constructive comments.
 
Thanks folks.
Just paying back.
Can everyone see the images I pasted into the image well enough to see the joints?
If not I could (perhaps) put references to larger images.

Pete
 
Instead of leaning the crown up against the fence, I do a compound mitre. Bevel is 39º and the angle is 31½º I think for 38º crown. I don't remember, I always have to look at the chart on the saw. So if the bevel stays leaned one way, you switch your angle and alternate whether the top or bottom of the crown is against the fence.
 
Instead of leaning the crown up against the fence, I do a compound mitre. Bevel is 39º and the angle is 31½º I think for 38º crown. I don't remember, I always have to look at the chart on the saw. So if the bevel stays leaned one way, you switch your angle and alternate whether the top or bottom of the crown is against the fence.

This is how I do it too. It's the only way I can picture in my mind how it's supposed to look.
 
I just made a quick and dirty five minute video on cutting crown flat. I'll post the video once it's done uploading to YouTube.


As a side note, I've been wanting to make some short videos on how and why I do things. Edumicational videos. A sort of poor man's New Yankee Workshop with out the northeast accent. I just haven't gotten around to doing it. It'd be neat I think for some. Just like Norm, most people don't have the collection of toys that he does, but the idea is always the same, just how you get there is different.


Should be ready to post about 11:30. Uploading to YouTube takes forever on a slow connection.
 
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Nice job Karl :thumb:

Your video and Pete's chart demystifies the process for me.

I didn't get into the hard part of crown. Knowing where to cheat angles, and how to rock n' roll crown around to make things work when you've got a level cabinet, and an out of level ceiling.
Or the easiest way to cope.
 
Good video, Karl. I'm sure it will be helpful to many folks.

When I was first doing a bit of crown molding, I couldn't get my head around the compound method at first. Then, I learned the upside down process and found it so much easier. I have a DW 12" dual compound miter saw that will cut up to a 4.5" rise with the native fence and 7.5" with an auxiliary fence. It's rare to find a 90° corner anywhere and I find it easier to tweak the joint a bit by tapping the miter adjustment one way or the other.

Making a cut fat, then nibbling is the way I've done most cuts forever. Also, while I tried thin kerf blades for several years, I quickly switched back to full kerf on my miter saw. As I needed to replace table saw blades, all of mine are now full kerf.
 
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