Coping molding with a router
 

Just a little tip for anyone out there who has tried coping molding with a
coping saw. I did this for the first time this past weekend and it was a lot
of work to get the cut perfect with a coping saw and hand files. ( I am a
little of perfectionist tho).

Anyways, I found that since I was using relatively small crown molding (was
really bed molding), I was able to use my router and router table to make
perfectly precise coping joints very easily. Just hold the wall side (ie the
part of the molding that is flush against the wall, not the ceiling) of the
molding flush with the router table, then mount a straight cutter bit in the
router and simply move the molding into the cutter until you have removed
the excess material from the profile. (This of course is simply
short-stepping the coping saw step, you still need to make the miter cut to
expose the profile). You do need to have steady hands and using a pencil to
mark the profile does help.

Even though the bed molding was small, I did need to get a 1&1/4" depth
straight cutter bit to go all the way through the molding. They had deeper
ones, but I imagine on 3-4" crown, that this method would not be feasible.
If you have done this with a longer bit on large molding, let me know how it
worked out.

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Thanks,
David