Thread: Skirting boards

Without opening another can of worms I suggest that you have a read of the following tread .....

Skirting Boards

Although a 45 deg angle on a mitre saw seems like the logical step .... when you start talking about out of square internal corners the scribe method may be slower but produce cleaner results.

Stinky.

Yep, use your mitre saw for only one side of the cut and scribe away, the only way to fly.

You will need to do a proper mitre on external corners though.

You might find this site helpful.
http://www.readersdigest.co.uk/diy/webpages/256_257.htm

Hello again,

Thanks very much for the help on skirting boards. This has taken me a step further. However, I am unclear as to what is meant by 'scribing'. My exact questions are

1) How precisely do the two pieces fit together when scribing is about to take place?

2) What instrument is used to scribe?

3) Would a compound mitre be an appropriate tool to use for this part of the process?

Please pardon my ignorance,


Adonis.

The idea of scribing is that you are creating a faux mitre - looks like one but is really a butt joint.

I've only ever done it with simple bevelled skirting and this is how it is done.

You start with the back wall of the room. ie one you would typically look straight at.

On that wall simply cut a length of skirting with squares ends that fits the space precisely.

For the adjoining piece, start with a 45 deg mitre and then using a coping saw (yes a hand tool!), cut square to the face of the skirting following the profile left by the mitre cut.
This will remove most of the mitre and should leave a thin sliver at the top of the skirt. This sliver overlaps the piece already in place.

ie you should have essentially another butt joint but with the thin sliver creating the optical illusion of a true mitre when all installed.

The idea is that you can't really look straight into the potential joint gap thus improving the visual appearance of the joint.

More fancy profiles should work the same way, but will requires more finese to follow the curves as you work along the mitre's plane.

Hope this clears it up a bit.

That's why I posted that link for you. There's a picture of a guy scribing an internal join. It's confusing to write down the procedure but if you have a look at that link it is clear what you have to do. The last reply by zathras, which is very good, is easier to understand too.

Zathras

Good post. This is probably all too late but as a Professional carpenter I need to have a say.
apjwm I hope if you crossed to Sir Stinkalots link you didn't get caught reading all three pages. WOW. that was some discussion.
A professional finish in my opinion is to scribe. Zathras has got it in one. That is the traditional way to join skirting in the corners. If the wall is not 90° thats ok. As you scribe slightly undercut the skirting, no gap behind the front scribe is visible.
The quick and most economical way is to mitre.
If this is your house then you decide.

Have fun.

Zathras

Good post. This is probably all too late but as a Professional carpenter I need to have a say.
apjwm I hope if you crossed to Sir Stinkalots link you didn't get caught reading all three pages. WOW. that was some discussion.
A professional finish in my opinion is to scribe. Zathras has got it in one. That is the traditional way to join skirting in the corners. If the wall is not 90° thats ok. As you scribe slightly undercut the skirting, no gap behind the front scribe is visible.
The quick and most economical way is to mitre.
If this is your house then you decide.

Have fun.

Hello all, (I've been on holiday since my last post)

Thanks once more for all your help. (This has been most useful).

My query now is, how do I legislate for uneven walls, bearing in mind that my previous skirting boards were about 5 - 6 cm and my new ones are 14cm? Quite often, there are some subtantial gaps between the top the the board and the wall. Any ideas??

Regards,

Adonis.

"no more gaps", or poly filler spring to my mind as a solution to this problem