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My thanks to Jim Chestnut and Jeff Burks for introducing me
to this great method for installing quirk-and-bead casing (or other
simple beaded colonial styles). In answer to Dan DeVol's question
about New England-style trim, Jim wrote (for the entire subject,
see JLC Finish Carp. forum: New
England Home Details, and Jack
Miter Progress:)
Dan,
You are a man after my own heart - and that of many trim carpenters
in New England.
The casing you describe is an excellent choice - with or without
plinths one piece or two ( ie. separate backband or one molded as
a part of the rest).
In my opinion, the biggest advantage to that style casing is its
versatility. If two piece, the bead can be jackmitered, the rest
of the casing butted, and the back band mitered. The jack mitered
legs can be pocket screwed together prior to the back band being
installed. You will have zero problems with wood movement using
this method, and is the way it was done in colonial times.
Another advantage is that you can vary the widths of the flats
to make things fit properly - which is not possible with highly
detailed profiles. For instance, if a cabinet starts a little too
close to a window or a door, the trim guy can use an entire casing
that may be slightly smaller than the rest in the house - but no
one would ever know.
Upstairs, where the closets are jammed into the corner where the
bedroom door is, a bead can be run on flat stock with a router (Whiteside
makes beading bits in increments of 1/32 radii), and the two flats
(the adjacent closet leg and door leg) can be jack mitered into
the head casing. Then the back band runs up one door leg across
the head casings of both door and closet continuously, then down
the furthest closet leg , all in one continuous piece. It then looks
as if the architect knew what he was doing. You will be able to
maximize much desired wall space without sacrificing the aesthetic
integrity of the room.
Though it may cost you a little more to do two piece, that is
the way it used to be done, and the way I prefer to do it as well
(despite the fact that miter clamps are not used).
If you have window walls, adjacent legs can also be easily jack
mitered, making a series of windows appear to be a single unit.
This can be done with one piece casing as well as two piece- if
I haven't made that clear.
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| This was the jig I imagined making, after reading Jim Chestnut's
post, and looking at
the photos Jeff B. posted. |
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| At first, I thought I'd be able to install a stop under the jig,
but that didn't work out. I
did shoot a finish nail through the jig, right where that stop is,
to help secure the jig to the
casing. |
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| Preparing to mortise a leg in the center of a head,
I scored a line on both sides of a square-cut block |
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with a utility knife, so the line would be sharp and perfectly flush with
the shoulder
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I darkened the scored lines with a sharp pencil so they'd be visible
in the photograh,
and I highlighted the previous chamfer cuts in my jig, so it would
be easier to line up
the scored mark. |
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I shot an 18ga 1 1/4 in. nail through both sides of the jig, centered
above the casing stock,
then clipped off the nail leaving about 1/8 in. protruding from
the bottom of the jig. I tapped the jig
snug against the casing stock, which seated the nail so the material
wouldn't slip while I was routing. |
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The clamps held everything secure while I ran the router. They
also helped secure the
stock in the jig. |
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There was a lot of chatter with this bit--I was taking a pretty
heavy bite all at once.
A plunge router might be better, with two or three pre-set stops.
But the template
guide worked perfectly. I ground the bit with my 4 in. grinder,
so the bottom wasn't
exactly pretty. You can see a scar on the back side of one cutter,
where the grinder slipped. |
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But the cutter still cut a flat-bottom mortise. For this mortise,
I had to cut one side
at a time, then move the material up against the opposite shoulder
of the jig. |
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I made the jig wider than necessary, so I could do two 'rails'
at once. That extra width
proved to be very useful, as the two spacers you see fastened to
the inside rails of the
jig allowed me to see exactly where the bit would cut. |
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Here I'm lining up the jig for the second cut. The pencil line
crosses the casing and marks
the farthest cut of the bit, too. You can just make out where the
radius of the bit ends,
so alignment was a snap. |
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Sometimes the mortise wasn't cut perfectly clean on the bottom--probably
because I
used scraps to build the jig and they weren't consistently sized. |
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I fine-tuned the mortise with a sanding block. One side has 80
grit, the other 120 girt.
Without a block, I would have rounded the mortise for sure. |
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This one could have been tighter. An early attempt. But I also
found that shaving a hair
off the end of the leg, or sanding the mortise a little more, helped
tighten up the miter joints.
Also, these pieces are just standing there. I didn't fasten them.
A couple pocket screws and
some glue would probably do a lot for this joint. And that's the
point of this joint: pocket screws
add considerable strength and are easy to install on the backside
of the casing. |
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Here's a typical head that's mortised on the end for a leg. The
mark on the left registers
the piece in the jig pefectly, so the leg will end up flush with
the endgrain on the head. |
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Here's the leg-to-head joint. The jig really makes this joint
simple. Henry P., this miter
isn't screwed together either. I cut the ends of the legs on my
mitersaw, first cutting the
miter, then cutting most of the miter off square. I make a simple
registration mark on the
saw fence and on the saw base, so it was easy to cut the legs the
right length. This jack-miter
joint is much stronger and more durable than a miter made across
3 1/2 in. casing stock. The
angle of a miter cut across wide stock will change as the width
of the casing expands and
contracts with seasonal humidy/temperature variations (see Open
Miters). The small miters pictured here won't be affected by
seasonal wood movement. The butt joint might telegraph through the
paint--
though pocket screws make that unlikely, but the small miter will
never open. |
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| This late 18th century kitchen (Abel Woods House; Sharon,CT)
has a typical colonial mantelpiece. The backboard is constructed
from varying width boards, and a simple plant-on molding frames
the firebox and the oven/wood storage compartments, |
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| The pilaster legs vary in width, and join the frieze with butt
joints.
The extreme width of the material, and the varying sizes, rule out
miter joints. |
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| The quirk-and-bead detail is jack-mitered, illustrating how
useful the technique can be. As Jim Chestnut said, combined, jack-miters
and pocket screws can be a carpenter's best choice, for design
and durability. |
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