Carpentry and Woodworking - Crown Molding Tools?

Going to be installing Crown Molding in our babys room this weekend.

I have a Compound Mitre saw, scaffolding, and a nail gun. Along with necessities as tape measure, hammer, etc.

What I'm trying to figure out is what other tools I'll need. I know for sure I'm going to need something to measure the angles in the corners but have no idea what that tool is? Any help on that tool and others needed would be very appreciated.

thanks

I personally don't bother using tools to find the angles, unless it's an angle other than 90. Even if it shows up as a 90, 45 or 22.5, I don't just set my saw at half and cut my piece. I will start out at half and adjust accordingly.

I would either rent or buy an 18 gauge pin nail gun with 1-1/2" brad/pin nails.

Stain/finish or paint all moldings before you cut and apply them to walls/ceilings. It will make your life a lot easier. You can follow up with a wax stick that matches the color stain to fill the pin nails. www.rockler.com

Or, if you're painting your moldings, you can spackle the hole by using your finger, let dry, touch up sand and touch up paint.

A stud finder might be a good idea too. Mark lines on wall/ceiling WITH ONLY PENCIL, to show areas where you'll nail

Puncture,

Many carpenters will buy "crown moulding stops" for their miter saw so that they can cut the crown "in position". Others prefer to cut it flat, using a compound miter saw, which is what I do. It might be a little hard to picture in your head which way the cuts go, which is probably why some people prefer the crown moulding stops. Anyway, you might think about that.

It usually helps to mark reference lines around the room before you start. These lines should mark the bottom of your crown moulding and will help to keep it "square" with the ceiling. This is a very important step that should not be overlooked. Make at least 3 marks on each wall- one on each end and then another somewhere in the middle of the wall.

You obviously have to miter the outside corners, but I prefer to cope all my inside corners, which makes life much easier, and you generally get a nicer fit (depending on how good you are at coping!) Work one direction around the room so that your crown has 1 square end, and one coped end (left or right, depending on your preference. I prefer to work right to left around the room, which means I always cope the right side of each piece.) Try not to have a coped end on both ends of one piece. And if you need to make a joint (on a long wall, or to use a short piece) be sure the joint where you will be nailing is over a stud, and cut a scarf joint.

I agree with Sawdustguy regarding the 18 ga. brad nailer, but I'd recommend 2" nails. Bigger crown requires bigger, longer nails- 15 ga. You might also want to buy a pack of shims just in case your ceiling or walls aren't perfectly flat. If you have a few gaps above or below your crown, apply some painters' tape to the crown, then caulk & smooth out. Once the caulk has skinned over, touch up with paint, and remove the painters' tape.

Great.. thanks for the advice and great ideas. Never heard of "crown molding stops" but it sounds like a great idea that might help aleviate some of the confusion.

Much appreciated all :)

I would get a coping saw and cope the inside corners. This is a more reliable method of making a good corner, and it does not require any more work in the long run. You can take a look at http://www.doityourself.com/wall/copingbetterfit.htm website for some diagrams on how to do this.

Hope this helps.

Puncture,

I just finished installing crown in our baby's room a couple of months ago. We have an older house that has had the foundation repaired and sustained some drywall damage, crown is great camoflage.

I agree with all recommendations so far although I haven't tried coping crown yet but it works beautifully on baseboards. I used a new tip a learned for measuring on this last job that worked extremely well: when measuring inside to inside put a mark around the center of the room up near the ceiling where the crown will go. Measure to the wall each from the mark and add the 2 readings together. This worked better for me on this job than on previous trim jobs. I had only 1 piece that went back to the saw due to a math error stemming from decipher my hieroglyphic notes. I have read articles on doing crown that recommend cutting 2 pieces of scrap with inside and outside miters to use when you go to the saw to make sure that you are set the right direction. I also found these useful to get a piece positioned for a good joint prior to putting up the other side of the joint. Always remember when you are cutting without the compound feature that when you are cutting a right side miter it will be on the opposite side when cut. Remember this at the wrong time can lead you to use bad language when you go to put it up. Buy extra material for this reason. I have found shims to be useful as well to help tweak and tune a joint. Something else I've learned along the way is to nail as far away from a joint as you can when you first put it up. That way if it needs a little twist or shimming you have more flexibility in the material to work with. Same goes for running scarf joints. I don't claim to be a pro or even play one on TV but I have put up a fair amount of trim and made plenty of mistakes along the way. I learned a lot here and by searching the web and from home improvement magazines and from the how to books at the big box stores. No shortage of info to be viewed. Most importantly, have fun!

Jester