Help, please, with skirting board.

[xy mosian]

A bloke in the village here is renovating a large late Victorian house, He chats about ways of doing the work, and sometimes finds my thoughts helpful. However he now has a problem I know nowt about.

The house has been re-plastered and to achieve this skirtings have been removed. The problem is that there are two external corners which are radiused. The radius of the curve is around 18" (450mm), it may be more. The skirting is 8" or 9" deep with an ogee moulding. Now I can see that kerfing is the way to go for the lower, plain, bit but the kerfing will break through the moulding. This will leave very short lengths of timber which will drop off with a heavy glance.
What is the best way of getting the moulding to run, well, around the radiused corner?
xy

 

[Graham Orm]

Can't be done as far as I'm aware. Moulded plaster can be very accurate if done professionally. They make a profile of the skirting/architrave then plaster the wall to thickness and run the profile over it.....in a nutshell....this will follow the curve and still give the profile required

 

[AndyT]

That's an interesting challenge!

Just thinking aloud here but I think you could do the plain part by kerfing,as you say. Then to match the ogee you could build up sections of suitable square edged wood, screwed to a board, making something close to a semi circle - probably half an octagon. Then use an electric router fixed to one end of a stick with the other end as a pivot point, and swing the router round the pivot so as to shape the built up pieces into semicircles internally (plain) and externally (moulded).
Then cut the semi circle in half to get the two quarters.

Alternatively you could turn a ring on a huge lathe, which is apparently how they used to make bases of timber columns.


Good luck!

 

[Chrispy]

Can you do this in two pieces as above, kerf the main flat piece then steam bend the top moulding and glue on when cold dry and the shape has set?

 

[AndyT]

Another idea would be to use the skirting in straight pieces but making the quarter octagon shape around each quarter circle. It could be quite a close approximation to the curve. Fill in behind the angles with blocks of wood, scribed to fit. And possibly some filler!

 

[rafezetter]

I would suggest cutting the moulded top off the skirting so the bottom part can be kerfed (with as thin a blade as possible), and then possibly steam / soak in water / itty bitty kerf the thicker parts of the moulded section, which would have to be done carefully, maybe with a small dremel circular wood cutting sawblade.

If enough was cut out of that thick section I'd guess after a bit of a soak in hot water it could be persuaded to bend.

I'd then fit it so the tops match to adjoining skirting and the gap created by the sawblade filled according to finish - wood color like plastic wood for natural or polyfiller if painted.

EDIT: AndyT's idea is also pretty good if you can get a router bit to match the profile.

 

[paulm]

Get the wall re-plastered with a proper corner on it !!!

(Well somebody had to say it )

Cheers, Paul

 

[Jacob]

Can't you get sample of the old one? That'll tell you how to do it straightaway.
I'd guess that
either the flat and the moulding are both kerfed but planted on separately so the moulding can be kerfed at an angle to avoid cutting through
or the flat is in effect a veneer - the back of the length of skirting being cut out to about 1/8" and bent around a shaped block- done carefull there is no joint. This is very common particularly with bull nose stair treads so a skirting would be easier and a familiar job
or the moulding is done on a spindle from solid- in which case you should be able to see the joint and the change of grain from straight to 45º at the ends

PS kerfing over the top of a TS works really well and if you get them close enough you can bend a redwood board to quite small radii down to 6" or so.

 

[rileytoolworks]

Here's how I'd do it.
Make a template of the corner.
Use this template to make a former, around which I'd laminate 9 2mm pieces (assuming a finished thickness of 18mm).
These 2mm pieces I would resaw from a thicker piece, keeping the leaves consecutive. (This will help to disguise the joint lines).
Press the laminations around the former, clean it up and run the moulding.
I do it this way all the time on kitchen end panels. (That's my job).

All the best.

Adam.

 

[Graham Orm]

Adam has aced it ! Brill. =D> =D>

 

[Jacob]

That resembles the trad way the difference being that in a bull nose step frinstance, the "former" is left in place (built in) and just one laminate is bent around it, this formed from the back of the riser so there is no joint. It's in Ellis et al. and there's a crafty detail of folding wedge to pull it up tight. The moulding (scotia) around a bull nose stair tread would be machined from the solid.

 

[xy mosian]

Thanks all for the super quick responses. Trying to answer all the posts. I asked how the original was done and was told " saw cuts in the back " the chap could not be sure about the moulded part.

Moulding plaster suitably struck was my first suggestion and shot down quickly as the finish is going to be natural, rather than dulux.

I'm not keen on threepenny bitting I have not seen a bead around a stair bull nose at flooring skirting level done like that which I liked. It would work though.

I have never used a steam box and it appears to involve quite a lot of setting up for two pieces.

I think, all in all, a slight modification to Adam's method should work. We don't have the luxury of an extensive 'shop so with what we have available a slightly simpler affair may run like this. Cut the plan shape of the curve out of skirting, in the flat, building up to height/thickness as required. After that a combination of scraper and carving gouges.

I was rather hoping someone with a long woodworking history might come along to say how he/she was taught to do it as an apprentice. There is time. Again thanks for your input everyone. I'll report back on progress if the job goes ahead.

xy

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I suspect the way to do it properly is as Adam describes, the only real problem is that you may end up machining all the skirting as you'll be lucky to get a router cutter that matches commercially supplied stuff. It depends how perfect a match you want. When I did mine there such large voids behind the skirting that I found it better to increase the height of the skirting to cover the scars - I did it by biscuit jointing wide architrave to 6" & 7" x 1".
In some other countries you buy your skirtings in two pieces, so you can choose the depth of the board and the depth of the moulding - they are t &g so you can have a deep board with a small moulding, or vice versa. It allows for clear material to be used for the moulding, so there are no knots falling out, and a second grade to be used for the base, which makes sense economically.

 

[xy mosian]

To resume my earlier post, I was called away.
Jacob I did not mean to ignore your post. I read the piece you did on the forming of bull-noses, and found it great to read of someone doing something I had read about. I think I'll leave the other chap to sort out the lower part, probably by kerfing. That way he can do that and carry on while I, perhaps, try to sort the moulding.

phil.p, I agree with you, if I had the equipment I'd certainly tackle the job that way. As for multiple part skirtings. my only oldish book, Newnes Carpentry and Joinery, shows that many deep skirtings were built up of multiple parts. The book avoids radiused corners blast it.

xy

 

[twothumbs]

I am sorry I must have missed this earlier as I had the same problem a while back.
My solution after several attempts to get it right is as follows. R/w ogee skirting 175 x 16. I glued up vertical soldiers a bit over size , splayed the edges by hand planing, glued them up. After that the strength for handling was a bit doubtful as it wasn’t a closed circle but managed to plane the radius ie took the faces off. With the flat face at the correct radius and rounded face, I then cut the cut section to the final height of about 150 and then topped with facetted sections to give some strength to the piece. I bought a ’cheap’ router cutter and grind it down to keep only the ogee profile and cut the ogee. You need to watch that the top is in sections which does not expose too much end grain, although it is a balance. I think I extended the radius with short sections of flat to ease the fixing of the pieces. I made two corners like this and was well worth doing in the end. I cut the ogee on a router table. The radius was a bit tighter certainly less than 18”. Hope this helps. I haven’t read all the previous posts so please excuse me if I am repeating what has already been suggested. I had paint finish....wouldn’t not have done in finished woods. Best wishes.

I should add that the two corners were origonally formed in Victorian times as chamfered so were crying out for a radius face.

 

[xy mosian]

twothumbs, thanks for joining in, all tips are welcome! Sadly this time painting is not an option. It sounds as if you took on quite a long job, I'm happy you are pleased with the result.
xy

 

[xy mosian]

An update. Today I bumped into a Joiner who not only had been taught to do this type of work, but had actually done quite a few skirting board to curved corner fittings as part of his daily work.

Basically Jacob got when he suggested kerfs cut at an angle so as not to break through the moulding. The only additional process was the slow bending, against forms, while keeping the wood wet. This over a longish time. Sort of like a controlled B&Q . He remarked " Of course the original would not have been as dry as the modern stuff, a bit like floorboarding kept outside to lessen splitting. " Then he made disparaging remarks about there being no need to remove the original before re-plastering.

Thanks all for the input, I'm sure there are a few good ideas in that lot. It's all down to the fitter in the end.

xy

 

[John Brown]

"Sort of like a controlled B&Q "
Love it!

 

[DrPhill]

"Sort of like a controlled B&Q "
Love it!

Me too. Many years ago I had an employee from B&Q (or some other such warehouse) helping me seach for a 'right-hand twisted' 3x2 to mate up with the ones I bought the previous week. I was actually looking for straight ones, but could not resist a sarcastic comment when asked what I was doing. I then had to let the joke run a while. Brought smiles to several faces......

 

[twothumbs]

My problem with kerfing, and I treid it several times, was it would break out when bending. I know kerfing is the way to go but didnt work for me with r/w. Technique wrong I suspect. Best wishes.