Laminate Flooring project of doom!

You see what I mean about cutting a 45 degree bevel to outline the trim profile now ?

 

That makes so much more sense now...

That's not you in the video is it?

 

That guy has a lot more hair than me

 

More than myself as well. Do you recommend cutting then staining, or stain everything first?

 

I always put trims on raw but I have a painter do the finish , lol

It may make sense to sand and stain your material on sawhorses first , then top coat them after install

 

This is probably the best video explanation I've ever seen....on any topic.

 

Alright here ya go, heres my basic baseboard write up.

First thing i do is measure the whole room, most of the time i measure the whole 1st floor or whole house to eliminate walking back and forth to the saw. I have seen guys cut one piece of base, install it, measure the next one and so on... Just not efficient IMO, so the first thing i do is draw a little map with measurements, something like this


I like to cope on the right side of the board, my first piece will have two square ends (sq.) so i start with one piece ( #1) and work my way around the room crossing them off on my map as i cut them. My second piece (#2) will have a sq end on the left and a coped cut on the right. The measurement i wrote down is from the square end to the long point of the 45* bevel cut, which is on the back of the piece. This side will be coped.


So mark the long point on the back of the piece and cut the 45* bevel like this


If you don't have a sliding compound miter saw like me you might find it easier to set the saw on a 45* miter and stand the piece of baseboard up on edge against the fence of the saw table. Now your ready to cope, again if you don't have a sliding saw you will need to cut the board on edge. The top profile of the baseboard will be sitting on the table, and the back of the baseboard will be against the fence. Make a square cut like this, stopping before you cut the detailed profile of the baseboard.


Should look something like this


Now get out the coping saw, the first thing i do is square up the top edge of the baseboard, then follow the profile with the coping saw. Notice i am holding the coping saw at an angle in order to back bevel my cut, this will ensure that your corner will fit nice and snug


You can see i left a sliver of unpainted wood, after my cut is done i will pull out the sand paper and make the edge perfect. I normally dont do this with baseboard, especially painted baseboard. But because you haven't coped corners hundreds of times you might find that your copes come out better if you do this, especially since you are doing stain grade. Another trick some guys use, especially with unfinished wood, is take your pencil, use the side of the led to make a mark on the profile like this before you cut (see how i marked the very top to be cut square)


Alright back to cutting, after you make your first cut of the profile it should look like this, its easier to make a few cuts starting at different angles rather than trying to follow to whole profile with one cut


Now make another cut like this


Then one more like this


And you should end up with this


And there you have it, that should give you a nice coped corner


Another trick i use, mainly when doing crown, is make yourself a test piece. Cut a small piece maybe 1 foot long and cut a nice cope on the ends. When installing the first piece for a corner butt your test piece up to it before you nail the piece. If the corner looks nice then nail off your piece. Alot of times the corners of sheetrock are not perfect and your baseboard will not sit perfectly square, the bottom will roll in or the top will roll in. If you nail it like that then you will have a gap, even if your coping cut is perfect. Using a test piece you can see what the corner will look like before you nail anything off. If the bottom of the baseboard rolls in you can use a shim in the bottom corner behind the baseboard, i am talking about the square cut, so in my first picture it would be the left side of piece #1 that piece #2 will butt into. If the bottom rolls out you can usually scrape off some sheetrock compound behind the piece to make the corner sit nice and square to the wall.

I think thats about it, hope it helps! I am not the best at describing stuff like this but hopefully you get what i am saying

Edit: when i say the left side or right side of the piece of baseboard, i am visualizing it as looking at the piece of baseboard from inside the room. Not the left or right side on my map

Oh ya, and don't forget to find your studs before you start nailing your piece you should be able to see where the old baseboard that you took off was nailed off, if they did it right every nail should be hitting studs. Good luck!

 

... ^^^ ... Very nice write up (especially with the pics) ... well explained ... you should write a book & be a shop teacher ...
.

 

So I decided to put the theory into practice with some of the scraps leftover from demolition today...Please pardon the low quality pictures, my Android phone died a terrible death so I'm using an older flip phone until my replacement arrives...

I used the miter saw and cut 45 degree angles like you said Oz, and got this.



The first thing I noticed was at the very tip there is that quarter of an inch about that will probably need to be factored in when measuring or I will be coming up with several near misses I'm guessing. That's good to know. My wife's grandpa said I'm best off at my skill level to cope the shortest peices, and cope first, and then cut the butt end to length. I am seeing where this makes sense.



I used the miter saw to cut a straight line up the flat part and stopped at the curves, just like the strange British man in the video said. Then I took my coping saw (4.49 at Menards, I was thinking they would be more, but it even came with spare blades) and worked my way around the detail in sections. Not as pretty as I would like, but lighting was sucky and I have had a rough day and had a few doses of 12oz therapy. I will not be doing that when I do the final product. (I will also be doing the closet spaces first) Do you think I could touch up the details with a Dremel if I really wanted it perfect?



Stuck them together and this is what I get. Well, sorta. It wasn't exact since I was holding it and didn't have a mock up or anything to attach it to. But I can already see the concept now and how it works. I am also already seeing how it works much better than the two 45's the previous owners shoved together in the corners in the remaining parts of the house. If the scraps weren't in such bad shape, I would consider saving them to redo those later on. I suppose I could always refinish them...or do like the previous owners did and go to Menards and say "give me the absolute bottom of the barrel cheapest stuff you have." I'll probably just end up redoing those down the road. Oz, need more firewood?

 

Nice job

 

I think I am already noticing something I did not do right. I did not go in at the angle like you did there. I may play around with this some more tomorrow. I can see where that would have made the cutting a touch easier...

 

Back beveling will make it easier to get a tight joint because only the leading edge is actually making contact with the adjoining piece

 

You can cut the 45* and measure off the long point to your square cut, just mark it and don't cut it if it is a short piece. If you do it the way you mentioned above, cope the piece then measure off that cope you will have to measure and install each piece individually, which takes a lot more time. When you cut the 45 and cope that end you remove exactly the width of the piece your butting too. Don't even pay attention to the ~1/4" you square off on the top of the piece. If you measure and cut like i tried to show you in my mini write up your measurements should be good. Either way you will figure it out, good luck

 

That makes sense now. Thanks man.

 

I cope the end of the piece and then measure and cut the other end

 

That also makes sense now. That's why sometimes I just have to ask, so someone else can help me with the obvious part I may have missed. So cut the 45, make the measurement, cut to length, then cope and it should all fit...And honestly I think they should make your write up and that video Oz-T posted and sticky it. That was a lot of good info. I went from nothing to making a cut that worked thanks to it.

 

There is nothing wrong with doing it that way, really you will have less error when doing it that way. In theory, the way i do it (measure everything then cut) will work out perfect IF everything is square and the baseboard sits perfectly against the wall.

 

Your way works fine , especially with painted trim as any small gaps can be caulked , I usually work in clear Fir trims and prefer to cope first , allowing me to fine tune or re-cope the piece if I'm not happy with the fit , prior to commiting to the final length

 

Must be nice to be able to take your time and make everything perfect, thats not the case with alot of jobs i am on, time is money. But I'm outa that game now quit my job and i am getting into high end work, time do downshift

 

Those are two factors I must take into consideration...