how to cut crown molding with a compound mitre saw?
Monday, June 21st, 2010 at
5:50 pm
inside and out side corners
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You don’t need to use the compound miter. Here’s how and it works.
Determine the distance the top of the crown sits away from the wall. Different profiles will have different angles (called spring angle) and thus different distances. Use a framing square to determine the distance. Say it is 3". Measure 3" from the fence on the base of the saw. Place a piece of crown in the saw upside down and mark the bottom of the crown, remember upside down, so the bottom of the crown is against the fence. This is the distance the bottom of the crown sits away from the ceiling, against the wall. Say it is 4". Measure 4" down from the ceiling at the corners, and pop a light caulk line.
I have a wooden miter saw stand I built specifically for my saw. So I would tack a piece of scrap of trim, like base, down in this case 3" away from the fence. But there are jigs that can do this too. Then measure and cut like base, but upside down and reversed. Say you are cutting a piece that is right side inside corner, left side outside corner. You put the base in the saw upside down, so now the miter for the outside side corner is on the right, and the inside corner is to the left.
Outside cuts should be about 45, for 90 outside corner. You may want to cut some 45 one foot scraps, left and right, to test the corner first. They are rarely true 90, so you may need to fudge the cut out to 45.5 or 46.
Inside corners, just like base, one end is a 90, the other 45 and coped.
It may seem weird to cut it upside down at first, but if you take your time and think it through, it will make sense. Think of the fence of the saw as the wall and the base of the saw as the ceiling. If you visualize it like that, it helps.
This link helps:
http://www.dewalt.com/us/articles/article.asp?Site=woodworking&ID=2
Now if the crown is too big to cut this way with your saw, then you will have to use the compound miter method.
Good Luck
This is really hard to explain without a hands on demonstration or illustrations so you can get a visual picture. I don’t even know if you know the top from the bottom of the molding.
You can search and get commentary along with illustrations that will give you a much better idea than someone trying to explain it. In fact there are even videos online that can teach you. Good Luck!
try this site,, you can stay here for hours,, great site
http://altereagle.com/4_How_to_insta.html
Call a carpenter! This is one of the hardest of all carpentry skills and if you don’t know what you are doing you will burn up many feet of crown and still not get it hung! If you insist get a crown molding jig – Rockler has one that works pretty well.
Here it is:
http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=10565&filter=crown%20molding%20jig
Good luck.
always cut upside down
i cut inside corner by cutting one piece straight wall to wall and hanging it
then the return miter on a 45, then cope cut the 45 back and then make it a tight fit but cutting the piece a bit long ( about 1/8" ), outside corners are cut at different angles , oddly enough it far easier to cut crown molding with a jig to hold the crown at the proper angle and ignore compound cutting all together
Have a lot of scraps to practice on…. every time you think you’ve got it right …it’ll be wrong!
Your compound mitre saw should have pre-set stops for crown molding at 22 1/2 degrees for mitre and 34 degrees for compound. I would advise you to cut your inside corners to the above degrees and fill imperfect cuts with putty. Coping your inside corners is an acquired art and often can result in frustration for the beginner. A good putty fill works perfectly and will hide any imperfections on inside corners. If you are unsure of your length on outside corners, start long and trim your length a little until the fit is perfect. Don’t forget to pre-drill your holes for the finishing nails (one size narrower than the nail) so you don’t split the molding when you nail it up.