Hello,

I have a cope joint to make in some 2.5 inch mape crown moulding.
I just need a quick sanity to check to make sure I'm doing this right
because my first couple of test pieces just weren't making it.

First I put an inside miter on the crown. I do this by laying the crown
upside down against the table and fence of my miter saw and mitering it at
45 deg. This worked fine for the outside corners so I'm assuming it should
work to get an accurately cut inside miter. If it doesn't then I must be
really missing something....

Then I mark the curved end with a pencil.

Then, as one previous poster suggested, I back cut it wayyyyy past where I
think it needs to be back cut to, and then back cut it a little more
following the pencil line on the face of the cut.

When I put the coped end up against a butt end at the spring angles they
don't even seem to want to meet. They are kinda sorta getting there but
they aren't close enough to where you could start cleaning them up with a
rasp.

Am I missing something fundamental here?

My cut along the face was pretty accurate, not perfect, this stuff is really
hard to cut, but pretty close to the line. Maybe not back cutting enough?

thanks
ml