Thread: skirting boards

Well guys, seems like I started an interesting topic. I worked on the weekend trying the different ways suggested above. I must say in my particular case, colonial skirtings that I am staining (no more gaps won't fix the problem), I have found that scribing works best (not mitre joints). Actually I find the way big pete suggested at the start very easy with good results, except still working on trying to get a good 45deg for the first couple of mm. Cutting them out with a thin jigsaw blade and coping saw isn't too difficult.

As for the comments with regards to amateur home reno's, I must say I am a real amateur but enjoy doing it and learning the different tricks of the trade. When I compare it to the work of professional builders I get in (structural, short on time or bit scared to try it myself), I must say I add value to my house, not reduce it. Can't get a better finish when there is a bit of pride about your work.

Thanks again for all those who have provided their opinion and given me different ideas so that I can find what best suits my style.

Excellent website!!!

No More Gaps.....tradesman in a tube!

ON the topic of filling in some mitred corners, i have the same dilema as above.... the problem was I needed a quick skirting job in one room, and I lost my coping saw. On a deadline, did the old mitre join thingo, but the walls let me down. Because I wasn't painting the skirting boards (varnish only), No More Gaps was no good to me, so I had to think a little ---- coloured caulking in the right colour. Bewwwwwdiful, just like Con the fruiterer

Super Tradesman in a tube!

I like the humor here too - if you dont like it : bugger off to a nail polishing/hair stylist forum! If you've been here for a while (I admit i'm newish) its easy to discover the agro and stirrer boys (eg Doorstop, Sir Stinkalot etc....) if you let them bait you you deserve it.[/QUOTE]


Jeez, 553 posts is considered "Newish", what do ya call my 3 posts?

"No More Gaps.....tradesman in a tube!"

Usually ordered over here as a "tube of no more tradesman"

Originally Posted by echnidna

"No More Gaps.....tradesman in a tube!"

Usually ordered over here as a "tube of no more tradesman"

LMAO, Cheers Bob

Anyway, place I'm reno-ing at the moment has double brick, render and plaster with 4" bull nose skirting boards. So, should I; a) start a poll and find out what type of internal joint method to use, b) just say bugger it and drag the saw down to the job and mitre the joints c) have a coldie and contemplate Belly Button Lint??

Cheers

Squizzy,
Belly button lint seems like the most fun but it don't get the job done.

A scribed joint cut out with a coping saw is so much easier to do than a mitre joint even using a SCM as virtually every corner will be very slighly out of square. With a mitre joint a slight gap is more noticable as the line of sight from the centre of the room is straight through the mitre. A coped joint could be very rough but not noticable unless you sight along the wall into the join.

If you use a poll to guage opinion try and listen to the builders and chippies on the forum as they have years of expertise.

Bob, It seems Dr Karl has done the Belly Button Lint thing. I noticed that on the skirting board I'm pulling out now the internals are scribed and the externals are mitred . Could be the option to preserve the sanctity of mankind. I have always done mitres but in the land of sand one of the things thats a relative cert is the walls are generally pretty true. This is (generally) because they're made by brickies not chippies , well on anything with some age anyway (Hey Al wheres me payment). And before the riot breaks out thats all a cause bricks tend to move a little less than timber

BTW Whats a "coping saw", do Makita make one?? or dare'st I say it GMC??

Cheers

Its not so much the chippies responsible for out of square corners.
You put up a frame with perfect square corners then the plasterers hang their sheets.
Then they tape up the corners and plaster over them a mm or so.
VOILA - no more straight wall or square corners!!.

Coping saw is a handheld saw that takes a little blade, similar to a fretsaw but a little more robust. Maybe they have a different name over there.

Originally Posted by echnidna

Coping saw is a handheld saw that takes a little blade, similar to a fretsaw but a little more robust. Maybe they have a different name over there.

Bob, was TIC comment (a chippy says Doh whats a coping saw??) get it . Its also a reflection of the extremely high quality and vast selection of saws you'll find in my Stanley Mobile Tool Chest (not)

Cheers

Squizzy,
mitred externals and coped internals is how it's generally done, accepted industry norm. Having said that I used to fit panelling and mouldings to all the boats made by one particular company and we (compound) mitred everything. Most joints were at anything other than 90 or 45. The bloke I got the work through and worked with for the first few years was a pattern maker by trade. He used to eyeball the joint, ocasionally drawing the positions of the mouldings on the panelling for the tricky bits, sometimes three dissimilar mouldings meeting, sometimes a curved moulding marrying into a straight one, etc. After eyeballing it he would cut it with a jigsaw and then clean it up with a (razor sharp) low angle block plane and sometimes pare it here and there with a chisel. We used to lacquer all the moulding before fitting them and you couldn't fault the joints, you'd be flat out slipping a bit of cigarette paper in. But even the simpler joints would take about half an hour each as opposed to about five minutes for a coped joint (ten minutes for colonial type mouldings).

Mick