anyone ever biscuit trim?

[Cheeky]

l'm gutting a bathroom, and just realized how often the joints around the window casing seperate. has anyone ever biscuited trim? if so, how is it a couple years down the road?

*i'm using basic flat trim*

[bdad]

I used biscut joints on all of the miter joints, on all of the casing in my house. That was done 8 years ago and I haven't seen any of those joints come apart. It also makes it easier to put the trim up because it helps align the joint too.

[Cheeky]

I used biscut joints on all of the miter joints, on all of the casing in my house. That was done 8 years ago and I haven't seen any of those joints come apart. It also makes it easier to put the trim up because it helps align the joint too.

booyah!!!!! now i have an excuse to buy a biscuit joiner!!!

should i get the PC?

[JoeyGee]

LOML tells me all the time my biscuits need trimming.

[Copper]

All of the trim joints in our house are screwed with pocket screws on the top and bottom (where you can't see the holes). I haven't tried tearing them apart, but I assume they're fairly strong.

Just another option...

[LarryG]

should i get the PC?

Nah, go all out ... get the new Festool Domino. Woodcraft has it on sale, $40 off the regular price, a steal at only $660!!!

Ahem ...

Like many others here, I have the P-C 557, and have no complaints. Earlier versions had a problem (with the fence, I think?) that has since been corrected. FWIW this model always does well in magazine comparison tests (it usually wins).

By all accounts, the DeWalt would be an excellent second choice, for a bit less money.

[scorrpio]

Not to rain on your parade, but in my experience, using a joiner to cut slots in mitered ends of casing is incredibly awkward. A router table with a slot-cutter bit buried in a fence and with a clamped stop is the ticket. Stick the mitered end in the corner formed by fence and the stop and pivot the casing into the bit.

[Hellrazor]

Scorrpio, tell him that AFTER he bought the PC. That way he has another reason to buy another tool.

[bdad]

It would be very difficult to do the trim if the biscut joiner was hand held. I made a stationary platform to mount the biscut jointer to. That way i located the trim on the tool fence and pushed the trim into it. It worked great and was much more acurate and safer.

[JimD]

If the casing is large enough that the resultant slot won't show on the ends, there is no reason this wouldn't work well. I've also used an oversized fence on the joiner in situations like this but I think you could just put the casing flat on a workbench and cut the slot with the joiner also flat on the bench as long as the resultant slot is not too close to the surface of the trim (the offset on the blade is 3/8 on mine so you would need thick casing for this to work.

I usually just dab on a bit of wood glue and shoot trim nails from both sides on the miters. They seem to be staying put.

Jim

[kramer katt]

biscuits in molding

I am now finishing baseboard in Kitchen and Dining Room. All my doorways and wall corners have bullnose in plaster so I was faced with running base (4-1/4" high) around that radius. Talked with a few finish carpenters and Rockler staff, tried to make up a faceted piece of 4 sections at 22.5 degrees to make up the corner. Making up two of those took two whole evenings so I ordered enough matching 90 degree bullnose radius piece from the same mill as the baseboard. It was hardwood rather than the MDF of the base.
Given that each of the corners had 1/16" to 1/8" variation due to the plaster finish I wanted to fix the base to the bullnose piece at each intersection. I tried 1/4'' dowels on a couple but was extrmely hard to align the jig and a 1/32" mistake showed up clearly on the face alignment. To make matters worse the shaper cut on the top detail of each piece had variations.
I ended up with searching for the old Ryobi small biscuit jointer which has long been gone from HD. By luck (not so much?) Sears had their version on clearance for about $40 dollars. I built a jig to hold by corners and used this on the remaining base. The fence on this jointer is a joke so I used only the base on a flat surface but the sides of the jointer are tapered on an angle so there is no way to set a stop for the sideways distance. Just used the clear center mark to align with my pencil lines. By nature biscuit cuts are not very critical horizonally as they are vertically so this worked OK.
These joiners use special small biscuits R1,R2 and R3 (which I used) They are a little smaller than FF so are a good size for smaller moldings. The R1 and R2 seem only useful in very small picture frames but such small things would need very accurate alignment so results may be questionable.
In all I am not very happy with the results although, after sanding and putty it all looks fairly nice. Not suitable for stain grade moldings or furniture.
kk