Sawdust on the Floor

There are very few truths in the world that can more readily be applied to every thing we do more than those expressed by the old English idiom, “God is in the details”. For those of us that believe in the glass is half empty rather than half full, then the idiom is “The devil is in the details.

As a home owner and a woodworker, I tend to have a very critical eye towards any home improvement or woodworking project whether in my home or some one else’s home. Now I can forgive the home owner who either thru lack of experience, budget or tools doesn’t complete every project perfectly. However, there is no way that I can ever over look a poorly done job done by a so called professional.

During a visit to a friend’s home, they very proudly showed off some work that had recently been completed for them by a professional carpenter. The entire job consisted of installing floor molding in a bath and linen closet, after our friends had redecorated the rooms. While our friends were very happy with the workmanship, I was appalled. The inside corners of the molding were already opening up. I suspect that the reason for this was that the carpenter had mitered the corners instead of coping them.

Not every home owner may know how to properly cope a mitered corner, but professionals should. So in case the guy who installed our friends molding is reading this, or if you are a home owner looking to improve their home improvement skills, here is the correct way to install floor molding.
In every room in your home, there are basically two types of corners, inside corners and outside corners. An inside corner is where the two opposing walls turn into each other, normally at a 90 degree angle, while outside corners, the walls turn away from each other. We are only concerned with the inside corners here. You will note that I used the term normally to talk about the angle of the opposing walls. The fact is that there are very few perfect corners in any home. Every corner will be either greater or less than the desired 90 degree angle.

Couple this with the fact that wood will normally expand and contract with temperature changes. Molding is no exception to this concept, molding normally will move along the length of the molding. So a miter cut into an inside corner will often open and close as the temperature and humidity change in the room, making the miter a poor choice for the inside corners molding.

Coping molding is easier than coping with a lot of the other things we have to deal with every day. Cutting the first piece of molding is really easy; all that is required is that the end be cut at a normal 90 degree angle. The second piece is coped or let into this piece. Lets assume that you are going to cope a piece of molding that meets the straight cut piece from the left.

Take this piece of molding to your miter saw, I choose to use my Compound Miter Sawcompound miter saw, but any miter saw will do. Since we are installing this piece from the left, turn you miter blade to the left 45 degree stop. Install you molding so that the back of it is against the back of the saw, and cut off the right end of the molding.

So here is where the coping skills come into play. If you were to take a pencil and highlight the line that forms the left edge of the cut you just made, the area to the right of that line is the profile of the molding. With a saw correctly named a coping saw,,we are going to cut out this area to the right of your line. With all of the material removed, the two pieces will meet correctly. I have found that I often have to tweak or sweeten up the coped end with either sand paper or file.

Continue to use the same concept all the way around the room. There is no set rule as to which piece gets the straight cut and which is coped. I prefer to always cope the piece to the left, but that is just personal preferences. If you choose to cope the right hand board, just turn your saw to the right 45 degree stop, instead of the left stop. If you are more of a purest, then you may prefer to use a Manual Miter saw instead of the compound Miter saw, either way the concept is the same.

If I were to ask you to make a list of the things that every woodworking shop will NEVER have enough of, I am sure that the list would include some very obvious things like lumber, glue , finishing materials, and of course Clamps.

I wish I could tell you that there is one type of clamp that will satisfy every need in your shop. But unless you are performing a single operation on the same size piece of wood over and over again there is no one clamp that will always work. The type of work that you are performing normally will direct the type of clamp that need.

My favorite clamp for most of the large work in my shop is the pipe clamp. What I like about the pipe clamp , is that the length is not set if you need a longer or shorter clamp, simply change the pipe. I currently have a collection of both ½” and ¾” pipe clamps, with lengths that run from 36” to a couple that are 72” long. I also prefer to use pipe clamps over bar clamps for glue ups of stock. I like to really tighten down on the clamps, and have found that the bar clamps tend to deflect, or bend when tighten securely, which move the glue up out of alignment.

Bar clamps are great for light duty glue up. While pipe clamps have less deflection, they are heavy and can damage smaller projects. The biggest difference in Bar clamps other than cost, are the thickness of the bar, and design of the ends. Bessey, shown at the right, have heavy gauge bars, and large parallel clamps points. Other manufactures use lighter bar and have smaller clamp points. The lighter weight clamps also have a flexible contact point on the movable portion of the clamp. There is nothing wrong with either the Bessey style clamp, or the standard bar clamp, both work very well. Which is better for you really depends on how deep your tool budget is. I would very strongly recommend that you stay away from the bargain box clamps, the flexible points don’t work on them, making them almost useless.

I recently saw a new option for clamping your work, vacuum clamping. The use of vacuum clamping in woodworking is not a new concept. A lot of woodworkers who work with veneers use vacuum clamps as a method of hold the veneer until the glue has set up. This method required that the project be placed inside a bag, that is then sealed and a vacuum is pulled on the bag. This creates equal pressure on all parts inside the bag.

This new concept is intended for to be used as a hold down for your work piece. Instead of using a vacuum pump, these clamps use your shop air compressor to create the vacuum. The clamp is connected to your compressor via flexible hose, and a manifold, that is basically and on/off valve

The clamp is offered in two styles, a single sided clamp that you bolt to your work space, and a double sided clamp, that’s clamps itself to your work surface. Seems like a really good idea for those smaller projects, costs aren’t really that bad either. One note, the hoses and fittings are standard and are available at your local DIY store. There is a replacement seal offered by the manufacture, that I think would be a good thing to have in your spares bag. There is nothing worse than having to go find specialty seals late at night or on a Sunday when all of the stores are closed. And if your luck is like mine, they wouldn’t have it, even of they were open.

No matter what type of clamp you choose to use, please use them. There is nothing more dangerous then a piece of wood that goes flying across your shop because it wasn’t secured when you ran your router or sander across it.