Trim and Moldings

Wainscoting in the basement part 2

Building up the door trim.
Building up the door trim.

From my previous comments, you can see that these are some of the unexpected issues that can come up. Now I have to rethink how to nail the built up molding onto the door casing. Instead of straight in nailing I’ll have to angle the nailer since there’s not enough door casing behind the built up trim to shoot straight in. Angling the nailer brings up visions of brad nails going off course and blowing out the side of the door casing. Been there and done that. Not fun. Now to carefully choose the right length nails.

In the end, they installed just fine, good and solid. I did put the random orbit sander to use and sanded down both sides of the build out trim, so that when it gets painted it will be hard to notice it was built out trim. See (A) below). Now with them installed, I measured for the lengths of trim needed to build the cap.

Three pieces of MDF: the bottom piece coved on both sides, the middle piece is flat stock with a mitered return on both ends and the top piece is profiled with a bit of detail. Honestly, I only have two profile router bits in my “arsenal of tools” and I didn’t like the other one. Simple choice really. 🙂 Some details should be pointed out at this time. Be prepared to invest a fair bit of time measuring the pieces. By that I mean the thickness of the stock pieces, the radius of the routered cove, see (B) below, how far to step back the flat stock, see (C) below and how far to offset the top plate, see (D) below. I decided to align the flat stock with the built out door trim installed earlier and had the bottom and top pieces stick out a bit further. It should look great once painted.

Door header molding.
Door header molding.

I started on the outside of the door. I’m having trouble with my 18 gauge nailer, nails are 2-1/2 so they just are enough to bit the wood, but accuracy is the problem. I was trying to nail in place a built out door trim and used “5” nails and still missed. Then on the 6th, I had a blow out. Didn’t swear, but I put down the nailer and went to the work shop to get some 3″ finish nails. I only had a few so I figured I’d pre-drill and nail in place. Drilled the hole and broke off the drill bit inside. Didn’t swear, honest! I just put the drill down and picked up a scrap piece of trim and starting to write down my shopping list.

Building up door trim moldings.
Building up door trim moldings.
Measuring for build up of trim.
Measuring for build up of trim.

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A Newfoundland born Canadian with a life long interest in woodworking, baking and anything else that peaks my curiosity.

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