What's a good trick to mitered corners?
by
Annette
In projects, my worst talent is the dreaded mitered joint. My house is old so nothing is completely square and to be honest, I can't measure a straight line! What's a good trick to mitered corners?
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I ran into a similar problem in my 1839 Greek Revival home. Nothing is square, level, or plumb. Forget trying to precisely measure the angle unless you want to invest in a digital laser angle finder, which I have never used so I can't say if it works. What does work is a more old school method of using scrap pieces of stock, test cutting them and then adjusting until you get the angle just right. I am assuming you are mitering outside corners of something like baseboard? If it is inside corners, then you should butt them or cope them. You will come across other methods to measure the angle on the internet, but none of them worked for me as well. Try the link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Idm2bJFFObU
If you are mitering flat stock such as window or door casing then the process would be different. Plenty of stuff on the internet for that too.
Here is something that I saw in a guy's house that can hardly use a saw...so mitering was completely out of the question. With these, you put straight edge to straight edge and they are STUNNING!! He used these on the ceiling (they point down on the ceiling) and the 5" baseboards. It was stunning. You can get these at the big box stores...cut them a little if they are too tall...I had to cut 2-3" off this one to be balanced with the size of my molding.
If there is a little gap, fill with caulk! Paint these before you put them up...Molding too!!! And buy pre-primed molding! It is higher in cost, but well worth it!