Carpentry and Woodworking - installing quarter round

I have to install quarter round in my kitchen, bathroom and three closets. I have a plastic miter box and saw that I bought at Home Depot for $8.75. I'm concerned about measuring and making front and back cuts on the quarter round.

Any suggestions on cutting and fitting quarter round would be appreciated.

Buy a coping saw. Not too expensive, and will make a world of difference in making the inside corners work neatly and nicely.

You need a tape measure long enough to measure the entire length of any given wall in one measurement.

Start with the longest inside piece. One that goes from inside corner to inside corner. Measure it to fit and cut 90 degrees on each end. It should fit exactly in place. To extend from the inside corner, cut the piece 45 degrees on the end, then take the coping saw and cut along the cut face back into the wood along the line where the original surface meets the newly cut area. This is called coping. This cut out area will fit onto the piece you just installed in the inside corner and make a perfect joint, without regard to the accuracy of the supposed right angle in the wall.

The outside corners are not so easy. Take care with the measurements and measure to the outside corner. Mark the quarter round from the tip of the coped end to your cut point on the other end. Mark this on the back of the quarter round and extend the line onto the top where you can see it from above. Use a square to do this. These are not expensive. A small one will be much easier to use for this.

Marking the measurements on trim is different to me than marking most other things. I use a knife to mark the wood. The blade is much thinner than a pencil and makes a more precise mark and line when used along a square. The thickness of a pencil line is enough to make a piece of trim look poorly fitted. The knife will make a difference. I like the $1 plastic multi-tip box cutter type knives with the sliding blade for this task.

When you cut the trim, think before hand about cutting on the side of the line where the wood will be the waste from the cut. Hold the trim securely against the miter box and cut slowly and deliberately. It may help to have the miter box secured to a board that you can hold down to the floor with your knee or fastened to a work table. That way, you don't have to try to hold the miter box and the trim at the same time.

Don't buy short pieces of trim, if you can avoid it. This will cut down on the number of scarf joints that have to be made in the run of trim down the wall. For these joints, plan ahead to have the joint face away from the most likely point of view in the room. This makes it less noticeable. For these cut two 45 degree angles and lap one onto the other. When you buy your trim, take time to compare the ends of each piece to each other to get them as much alike as possible to avoid having to deal with making a joint with two pieces that are noticeably different. The difference in size will show up when you do.

Here is a site that talks about coping and has some photographs to show what is going on. It is more directed to installing crown molding, but the principle is the same.

www.compoundmiter.com

Attach the quarter round with #8 finish nails. Use a nail set to set the nails to avoid damaging the trim.

Start in the closets so you can practice on something that nobody will see.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Chris. Your suggestions make a lot of sense...especially the part about starting in a closet where if you make a mistake it won't be noticed.
Thanks again for your help and quick reply.

Jim Pummer