Took me 4 hours to build this...

[Garasaki]

4 hours, during all of which I was feeling frustrated, confused, nervous, or all of the above, yeilded that little fella. Honestly one of my least enjoyable projects ever.

It's a small trim piece for some wallcaps I'm putting on - one of the final finishing touches on my basement finishing project.

Here it is again, front view:



Seems pretty simple eh? Well, as the bard says, herein lies the rub:





Bullnose drywall corners, and drywallers who didn't think to give me square corners at these points. The idea here, is that my additional trim pieces can now simply be straight with 90 degree cuts, and they will not look out of place with weird angles and grain directions (although this piece does have weird grain directions).

Add to the complication, the slope of the wallcap here, which is 38 degrees.

To my eyes, the difference between 38 and 52 degrees is impossible to tell with the naked eye.

Here's a few pictures to give a better idea of the scale...





How does one build this thing?

It starts as a blank of 6/4 cherry, cut to width. Turns out the radius of the bullnose is right about 35mm, which was quite handy - I used a 35mm forestner bit in the DP to make the radius corners, used a jigsaw to remove the remainder. Then it was time to get confused, frustrated, and nervous as I attempted to layout the 38 degree angles, make a few bevelled cuts, then work on 90 degree cuts from the 38 degree reference cuts.

All the cuts after the initial reference cuts are made awful close to the blade. Hence the nervousness. I used a crosscut sled for a lot of it, because that allows me to hold the piece still and move the entire assembly. Seems much safer for this type of work.

Had to throw the 1st one in the trash.

I have to do another one tonight Wish me luck.

[pelligrini]

That does look like a difficult piece.

Have you considered just cutting the sheetrock back to the stud and not doing the rounded trim cuts?

[Shep]

That is not easy to do. Good job on the cutting.

If it were me, I would have just put trim around the whole underside of the cap. That way you could have simply mitered the corners and left a hiden gap behind the bottom (where your piece is now). This would also make for a cleaner line around the entire cap.

Just a thought.

[Garasaki]

The problem with that approach is a unslightly gap on the bottom of the piece and on the corners, which would be visible when laying on your back looking up at the ceiling on the bottom of the stairs.

It would be something no one else would notice but would probably drive me nuts. Know what I mean?

Oddly I don't think I will mind the joint line where it will fall with this arrangement...

[poolhound]

Unless I am misunderstanding what you are trying to do, if you are making a bunch of these (the same) here is what I would do.

1. create an MDF template for the profile of the cutout.
2. make a V cut base so the trim piece will sit steady at the right angle to make the cut possible at 90 degrees (perpendicular to the table surface)
3. Take the long stock (DONT CUT IT). Mark out where you need these cutouts with room to trim to exact length. position for the first one, rout out the cutout then setp and repeat.
4. Now take the long piece with all the cuts made to the cross cut sled or miter saw and trim off each one to final size.

[Garasaki]

Oh that's a pretty good idea, the carrier sled.

As for doing all the profiles from one long piece, the trick is that the first step is making the radiused holes, which sit vertical. So that approach would be a little complicated, in that I'd have to try to mark all those and make those first, then come back and make the angled cuts. Which I suppose really wouldn't be that bad - I just don't like to make measurements (or marks) on a piece where I have to take into account kerf width.

Fortunately I only have to produce 2 of these, and I've got one down. I think I probably will try to make a carrier sled for the second one. Shoulda thought of that last night........

[jabe]

The bullnose or rounded corner beads does create problems for the trim or finish carpenter. I've seen some drywallers make the corners start and end square but the middle remains round.

[Garasaki]

Yeah they did that on all the base outside corners - it's just a plastic cornerbead thing they put on. They didn't think to put them in these areas. I had actually thought of it but failed to communicate it effectively to them...