wood mouldings

[WCicotte]

I have a large double wide mobil home that needs baseboards, chair rails, crown and door casings. I have a 3 1/4 hp router in a table and need to know what is the most practicle lumber to use and how to best purchase it. What sizes would be most efficient. I intend to paint all of them. Thanks, Warren

[Jeffrey Schronce]

I don't want to rain on your project, but my guess is that it would be much cheaper and efficient to purchase paint grade pine molding from HD or Lowes. Production facilities are able to use cheaper material by gluing up and joining pieces of wood we would have to throw away. Imperfections are filled and sanded out, production is very efficient and costs are pretty low on that stuff. If you were choosing to do it in hardwood, it would come closer to being feasible from a cost perspective, plus you could custom design. But I can't see all that effort for paint grade material.

Router bit profiles for that job would costs hundreds (crown profile, base board profile, chair rail profile, rosette cutters for casings, bull nose for casing). If you choose to do it yourself, the cheapest way to go would be rough pine milled yourself, however I'm not sure that pine would be real good to your planer, jointer, TS, router bits, etc. Poplar would probably be the most reasonable choice for paint grade if you want to do it yourself. Again, that is likely going to cost more than the off the shelf pine at HD or Lowes.

[Popeye]

I agree with Jeffery, for that amount of molding and it being painted I'd buy it. Pat

[JR]

I was staring at molding in Home Depot just yesterday. If you don't have router/molding bits you especially want to use then you probably want to do as already advised. Buy paint grade molding at HD. You might even find profiles you like that are already primered.

There's plenty to do to measure, cut, (re-measure and re-cut, if you're like me!), caulk, primer, and paint, without adding unnecessary complexity by mfg. the profiles.

My 2c

JR

[LarryG]

Purely as a matter of simplicity and/or economy, I don't disagree with the other replies. But if you nevertheless want to make your own mouldings, whether Because You Can or Because You Want To, poplar and white pine are two good and relatively inexpensive options.

You could also use MDF, although it is not very durable (edges/corners dent fairly easily, recommended only for an adults-only household) and will take some extra prep work on the machined edges.

Sizes are profiles are primarily a matter of personal taste and aesthetics. Main thing is to consider the scale of the mouldings; big, froo-froo mouldings require a room to match.