Cutting Existing House Trim

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8
Location
Hawaii
Hello from Hawaii,

Newbie carpenter here! I stumbled across this website and I hope I might obtain some carpentry advice.

We're painting our home and I'd like to make two small angled cuts to existing trim. Please see attached.

Is there a tool/technique that I might use that would easily make these cuts? Dremel Ultra saw or?

Thank you in advance for any input!
 

Attachments

  • Trim Fix2 2020.pdf
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Welcome to the forum Grant! If you have a really sharp chisel, you could pair off those corners pretty quickly. Or if you have a Harbor Freight store near by, they sell a multi tool that is a handy saw/sander in one. You can plunge right in with the saw blade to trim those corners..

This is the variable speed one, they have a single speed one for about $19, but not sure it comes with the saw blades, just sanding pads.
 
Thank you Darren. I've never used a chisel but that sounds like a good idea.

We don't have a Harbor Freight but Home Depot carries a Ryobi Multi-Tool that I might purchase.

I appreciate the input and would never have thought about using a chisel or multi-tool!
 
Welcome, Grant. :wave: I'll second Darren's suggestion for the multi-tool. They're handy tools for a lot of odd trimming/cutting jobs. I used one recently to cut a neat rectangular hole in some siding to install an exterior electrical outlet at a friend's house.

Harbor Freight also sells via their website, and they do offer shipping to Hawaii. (Not eligible for the $6.99 flat rate shipping, though, and if you needed to return it for any reason, things could get expensive.) On the other hand, if you buy the Ryobi from your local Home Depot, you'd have a much easier time returning it if need be.
 
Thank you everyone! What do you folks like about Harbor Freight? I've never ordered anything from this company in the past. Good products at good cost? Good service?
 
For me, it's a price/value situation at HF. Most of their tools are of decent quality for a home user and some are solid for anyone. Like most places, you have to look around and decide what will or will not work. I have many items from HF and am satisfied with them.
 
I've had not so great luck with Harbor Freight power tools, but I do own two of their fixed speed multi tools. When on sale, these are only about $14 each and quite a bargain. If they survive several hours of use, they easily justify their cost. These newest ones are #3 and 4. I wore out my first multi-tool. The nubs on the blade grip wore off and the blade wouldn't stay tight. The second multi-tool fell apart in about 20 minutes of use. I was going to combine the two to get one good one from the parts, but when they went on sale this time I picked up two more, and have the other two for spare parts. #3 has about 1/2 hour of use so far and it's running fine, so far. #4 hasn't been used yet. The big problem with Harbor Freight tools is their Quality Control Department......There doesn't seem to be any. So you, the user, gets to discover the lemons. You may get a good one, but with my kind of luck, I usually do not. If you discover what you purchased is a lemon within the first 30 days, you can exchange it. After 30 days you get to pay full price for another, or a better quality one at a higher price from someone else. The hassle of a tool going bad on me during a project is something that I just can't stand. I have too little time to get things done to have to stop and go shopping for a replacement tool in the middle of a project, but these multi-tools are so cheap that just one use usually justifies their cost. If they survive for more than one project, they have fully justified their cost. I just plan on keeping spares from now on.

A couple of years ago my #2 son bought a 1/2" drill from Harbor Freight. He was drilling 1/4" holes in a mild steel plate with a new drill bit. The first 6 or so holes went well. During the next 3 the drill was getting very hot, even though he was letting it cool for a couple of minutes between each hole. I think it was on the tenth hole that fire came out of the vent holes, and the drill was headed back to Harbor Freight, less than one day after it was purchased. My son got his money back, went to Lowes and bought a DeWalt to replace it, of course at a considerably higher price. I couldn't tell you how many holes that DeWalt drill has drilled, but he was able to finish that project and many more without the DeWalt drill getting even seriously warm.

I have purchased many non-powered tools from Harbor Freight. Some are great bargains, and some are definitely not. I usually decide if the savings is worth the gamble, and base my buying decision on that. My nearest Harbor Freight store is 3 miles from my home, so it's easy to take things back, but I still don't like having to stop the project and go shopping for a replacement. If I was living somewhere where shipping would be involved in returning defective merchandise, I doubt that I would buy anything from them.

Charley
 
Charley summed it up pretty well. Harbor Freight's QC is all over the map, particularly on their electric-powered hand tools. I've seen cases where two identical tools purchased from them at the same time had very different lifespans. In one case, I bought two right-angle drills, keeping one for myself and sending the other to a forum member in Tokyo. His died within a week, but mine is still going strong years later, after literally hundreds of hours of use. For things I only intend to use on rare occasions (like my chain saw pole pruner or reciprocating saw), I feel comfortable taking the chance. For other things that I expect to use more frequently, I usually spend the extra and get a better name brand. (The right-angle drill I mentioned above was an exception to that rule.)

In the case of a multi-tool, I have two friends I can borrow one from. Both are from Harbor Freight, and one of those friends is already on his second one. (He used the first one a lot, and like Charley's, the part that holds the blade wore out.) But if I needed to buy one, I'd probably get it at Harbor Freight, because there's one close to my house, and a multi-tool would rarely get used around my house.
 
Harbor freight is hit an miss I like their pneumatic tools but in the past most of their electrical hand tools the older ones like the the Chicago electric are junk. I think their newer ones the Hercules and Bauer brands are a little better than the older brands they had in the past but they cost more it's the old say'n "ya gets what ya pay for". I recently bought a Bauer jig saw and it is pretty good so far. I think if I lived in the islands I wouldn't mess with shipping Harbor freight from the mainland. If you got a Home Depot or Lowes local your better off buying local so you can always return it.
 
From my experience, Ryobi tools aren't a whole lot better than Harbor Freight. They are reliably better then Harbor Freight at purchase, but they don't survive very long. I gave up on them about 20 years ago, and I only own one Ryobi tool now, a hand held power plane. It's still around because it has less than 1 hour of use. If it develops a problem it will likely be trash, because Ryobi's replacement parts are unreasonably expensive, and they discontinue stocking them only a few years after the product goes off the market. For just a few dollars more, get a DeWalt, Makita, Triton, or Porter Cable and if it needs parts and service in it's first 10 years of life they will likely still be available, and reasonably priced.

Charley
 
From my experience, Ryobi tools aren't a whole lot better than Harbor Freight. They are reliably better then Harbor Freight at purchase, but they don't survive very long. I gave up on them about 20 years ago, and I only own one Ryobi tool now, a hand held power plane. It's still around because it has less than 1 hour of use. If it develops a problem it will likely be trash, because Ryobi's replacement parts are unreasonably expensive, and they discontinue stocking them only a few years after the product goes off the market. For just a few dollars more, get a DeWalt, Makita, Triton, or Porter Cable and if it needs parts and service in it's first 10 years of life they will likely still be available, and reasonably priced.

Charley
I still use my Ryobi battery powered tools (drill, saw, trim router) that my wife bought for me over 15 years ago. I been through many set of batteries and chargers and they are still going strong and I do use em a lot.
 
From my experience, Ryobi tools aren't a whole lot better than Harbor Freight.

I'm thinking that you "use" your tools a bit more than occasionally. :D Most of the HF tools I have that are electric are typically for very occasional work, but most have lasted a long time now. Day in/out work I'll stick with more professional tools myself. :wave:
 
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