On 21 Dec 2004 18:01:49 -0800, "fred" wrote:

Has anyone found a good coping tutorial online? i've tried and tried
but have yet to experience much success in coping...

I haven't seen anything online but it just takes a little practice.
I always cope on the same end as I go around the room (until I get to
the last piece) putting the first piece up with no cope on either end.
This does make you cope both ends of the last piece, assuming it goes
up in a single piece.
To make the cope, cut a 45 on the miter saw first and follow the edge
of the cut with your copeing saw. The biggest problem most people
have, with the cope not fitting, is that they do not have enough
undercut. Crown molding requires a pretty severe undercut as you
follow the detail. Just lean your coping saw at an angle as you saw.
If you have followed the edge of the cut pretty well and the piece
does not seem to fit it's probably because there is not enough
undercut in one or more places on the coped piece. You can't get too
much undercut (unless the blade starts coming out of the front of the
molding) but if you don't get enough undercut the joint will appear
open because the installed piece is hitting the back side of the cope.
If this is the case just lean the blade over a little more and take
more out of the back side of the cope.

On one of the TV shows I saw that someone had invented a machine that
would saw copes for you. It had some kind of small circular type saw
mounted on the machine and the saw would move in all directions. The
roundness of the blade would create the undercut and the machine would
follow a piece that you had already coped. It kinda worked like a key
duplicating machine. I found it on the Internet a while back but I
figured I could cut a lot of copes for $2400.

Mike