A book on hand plane moldings?

[Pekka Huhta]

I have made hand planed moldings to my bathroom and will be making a lot more, so the history of hand planed moldings has started to interest me.

Has anyone seen a good book about different moldings, the history and use of them, periods and styles etc.? It might be that this information would have to be searched from architectural books or something, but none of the hand tool books mention anything about the subject, or at least they don't go any deeper to it.

I'm not into copying existing moldings as-is, but as I am designing a more complicated molding, it would be nice to know what kind of shapes sort of "belong" to certain styles or periods.

Pekka

 

[bugbear]

I have made hand planed moldings to my bathroom and will be making a lot more, so the history of hand planed moldings has started to interest me.

Has anyone seen a good book about different moldings, the history and use of them, periods and styles etc.?

Whelan's book on wooden planes has "some" information, but is rather expensive to buy just for this.

Don't forgot that *all* pre-1800 mouldings were hand planed.

BugBear

 

[Pekka Huhta]

Don't forgot that *all* pre-1800 mouldings were hand planed.

Sure, that's why I thought that the info would probably have to be dug up from architectural books or something else.

It sounds silly that "everyone" collects planes like maniacs and none actually makes research about the history. History of the tools, yes, but not history of what was made with them...

Pekka

 

[Paul Kierstead]

No kidding, and not just historically. We have been doing a slow-burn reno, and I am continually amazed and the difficulty in finding books with molding profiles in them, outside of the usual profiles at your local mill. Most books will go a little into built-up crown moldings, and maybe a ceiling treatment, but these are all very similar. I still haven't found a guide to moldings, styles and various purposes.

 

[Jake]

I think as you suspected, the best info will be in architectural sourcebooks - if you search for "victorian architectural" or "georgian architectural" on Amazon, etc, you'll see mouldings (or, more commonly, moldings) come up quite a bit.

 

[pam niedermayer]

There's http://www.amazon.com/Furniture-Mou...r_1_22?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200414595&sr=1-22
by Warne and http://store.taunton.com/onlinestore/item/070708.html by Bird.


Pam

 

[Pekka Huhta]

Thanks Pam, the links go into the right direction already.

Could it be that there are some studies about furniture moldings as old type furniture building has never stopped completely, but nobody has made architectural moldings for 200 years? So the link between makers and researchers has disappeared. There may be a few furniture makers who also research the old furniture moldings and the tools used, but architectural researchers only see the architecture, without thinking the tools used to create it...

I don't know. And even more difficult is that while it might be possible to find some information about old styles in the anglo-american world, finding anything about scandinavian styles from 1800's is probably hopeless.

But any suggestions are welcome, nevertheless.

Pekka

 

[bugbear]

Hmm. This thread appears a little confused. Are we talking architectural mouldings (room cornices, pillars, etc), furniture mouldings (on moveable pieces e.g. dressers, cabinets, tables), or "trim carpentry" mouldings (e.g. door frames, fire places), or all of the above?

BugBear

 

[Pekka Huhta]

It seems that I don't have the therminology right... From your options I would say "trim carpentry", as that's what I'm mostly doing for my house. So that's the most interesting part of it.

Pekka

 

[Paul Kierstead]

... Are we talking architectural mouldings (room cornices, pillars, etc) .... or "trim carpentry" mouldings (e.g. door frames, fire places), ?

When I look as some fine older homes, it is clear that the trim carpentry was taken seriously and considered in the class of "architectural". In newer homes it is pretty clear that it is just to cover the gaps, and barely at that. A sorry state of affairs.

 

[daver828]

... Are we talking architectural mouldings (room cornices, pillars, etc) .... or "trim carpentry" mouldings (e.g. door frames, fire places), ?

When I look as some fine older homes, it is clear that the trim carpentry was taken seriously and considered in the class of "architectural". In newer homes it is pretty clear that it is just to cover the gaps, and barely at that. A sorry state of affairs.

Paul, on this side of the pond, at least in the part of the country I am in (Western NC), there is a common saying with "carpenters" (if you could ever call them that ........the comment is "the painter will fix it", meaning a few cases of caulk and nobody ever sees the difference. Well, even though homes, even small ones, are selling upwards of a million dollars, the quality is not what a real craftsman would use on his bird feeders. I agree with you, it is a sad state of affairs.

David

 

[beech1948]

Pekka,

I really understand your problem. I finished a renovation of a house built in 1818 about 6 years ago. It proved impossible to get mouldings for interior trim from anywhere.

Seeking information I found that there were no books which covered this; at least for the UK.

My sources were as follows:-

1) I talked to a number of furniture restorers who were somewhat helpful as they and their trade would have been the interior fitters of there day. Most had very keen observation of the interior environments they were restoring furniture for. They were also able to provide me with a vocabulary with which to describe the types and styles of moulding I wanted. That was very valuable.

2) I used some of the ripped out mouldings as patterns. After getting some quite outrageous quotes for prices from the commercial world I simply reeled back; considered holding my bank manager to ransome; then bought a Felder Combi instead. Yup, they were that expensive. I designed a number of moulding profiles for various uses eg; architraves, skirtings, picture rails etc etc and had tooling made for my combi/shaper.

3) I found that visiting old houses and ignoring the furniture but looking at the trim bits paid off. Take a six inch steel rule with you and photograph the mouldings with the rule in place...you may need to ask permission to get that close...then if you get permission take with you a steel profiler tool...that is the multiple strands trapped by a bar and use this to take an impression of the moulding and then immediately record in a note book by tracing.

4) Old catalogues of moulding planes were also a bit useful as they showed what the tools looked like and provided a negative of the moulding if you like. Catalogues of 1800 ish moulding planes are few and far between....I found a few in museum libraries. I also found an 1853 catalogue of mouldings but by then fashion had changed and the mouldings were slightly different.

I know it all sounds like a real difficult exercise but I don't think your going to get it all out of a book.

If you get this far then simply make a plane, or use a built up method.

Remember that you can take the old design and add to it, simplify it, or combine bits from different mouldings...and then make the planes.

Best of luck
Alan

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Pekka

What’s in the link below I scanned from the two books mentioned below. We have no real name for the type of thing I think you are after, just interior timber mouldings.

You can see other examples on my website.

http://www.alanwakefield.co.uk/Period%20mouldings.pdf

Victorian Domestic Architectural Plans and Details by William T Comstock Dover books on architecture

A visual Dictionary of Architecture by Francis D. K. Ching

John Wiley & Sons INC

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Pekka

Forgot to mention when I need matching architrave / mouldings etc I either make template and then drawer it in AutoCAD and send that to have a pair of cutters and limiters made or I cut a thin peaces off the moulding in question and send that off with the order for the cutters etc. This I do lot when working for English Heritage.

 

[Pekka Huhta]

Thank you Alan (both of you Alans ). The book seemed very good and the terminology explained helped a lot, at least I have tons of good search words now.

I have copied existing moldings, but from time to time there are places where no existing profile fits and I just have to brew up something that fills the space and looks nice. And especially on these occasions it would be nice to have some sort of "rules" or source of inspiration instead of just improvising.

I wrote a story of the first moldings I planed for my bathroom.

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/view ... hp?t=16421

I have to make some more this weekend, I'll post pictures from the other moldings as well.

Pekka

 

[Racers]

Hi,

I have had to have cutters made and hand plane skirting and architrave for my sister-in-laws 1910 house to restore its orignal layout, a wall and double doors where removed and an arch way bricked up. This must have soom after the house was built as the bricked up wall had matching skirting board.


Pete

 

[bugbear]

Pekka's page shows how to build up a moulding using multiple planes, and the obvious (modern) solution is a custom cuttter in a spindle moulder.

For small-ish runs, one can get by by making a cutter for a scratch stock, and removing as much waste as possible with "planes you have" (see Pekka's exellent page for ideas) before using the scratch stock.

I did this to replace a small section where somebody had recessed a (horrid) fitted wardrobe in to the skirting of my house. Having removed the (horrid) wardrobe, I needed a few feet of skirting.

This approach is probably practical for up to 12-ish feet (depending on your personal priorities and sense of humour)

BgBear

 

[Paul Kierstead]

This approach is probably practical for up to 12-ish feet (depending on your personal priorities and sense of humour)

:lol: And here I thought I had a good sense of humour!! Very well put

I'd swear that you could buy a chiwanese shaper with power feeder and get custom knives made cheaper then getting custom molding made for a house.

 

[Pekka Huhta]

Yes, I think I would be using a scratch stock probably on furniture-scale work, as you can get the shape practically identical to the old one, which isn't necessarily very easy with planes.

On the other hand softwoods don't scrape well (or at all) so as most of the painted moldings here are done from pine or spruce, you can't use a scraper.

I would say that on simple moldings (say, just sticking a simple molding on a skirting board with one plane only) you can make the moldings for an entire house before it pays off to order a set of cutters. For more complicated moldings it depends, but if the limit for scraped moldings is something like 12 feet (4-5m), I'd say that I would not care hand planing much more than 20 meters of a more complex molding.

It's actually very straightforward business, making a molding like that. After a few different profiles it all starts to make sense and it's surprising how fast it is after you get into the rythm.

Pekka

 

[bugbear]

Yes, I think I would be using a scratch stock probably on furniture-scale work, as you can get the shape practically identical to the old one, which isn't necessarily very easy with planes.

On the other hand softwoods don't scrape well (or at all) so as most of the painted moldings here are done from pine or spruce, you can't use a scraper.

Agreed. The surface finish I got was "moderate". But since it's "only" skirting board, I used it anyway!!

Good softwood scrapes better than poor softwood; perhaps I was lucky.

BugBear