Reclaiming Mahogany for Baseboards #3: Decisions, decisions

Took the weekend off to go buy lunch for a starving college student, and drive 3 hours each way for a school play that one of the kids who shows up occasionally in our lives was involved in. But now I’m back, and though work seems like it’ll be a little heavier this week, I still want to push forward.

However, that means no pictures and no progress to report.

Thanks to some help from fellow home refurber MRTRIM, I think I’ve got a clearer view of how to fit these things once I get them finished. For inside corners, it sounds like I take one of the boards, cut a miter on it as though I was going to do a miter joint, but then clamp it, take a coping saw, and cut away where that bevel matches the profile. I even cut it back at a negative bevel, so that the edge that mates to the straight piece of wood is sharp and can bend a little bit, making the fit as tight as possible.

Normally, with painted trim, any goofs here can be fixed with putty and paint. We’ll still be using our share of wood filler (if nothing else we’ll have some nail holes to touch up), but getting this as clean as possible is a priority.

I’m also calling up the guy who refinished our floors (and did an awesome job) and paying him for an hour or two of talking with me about the details. Specifically, we’ve got some gaps and possible wobbles in the floor that I want to make sure we’re accounting for.

And then for the hard decisions:

We need to join some of these boards for longer runs. I could just do a biscuit or Domino enhanced butt joint, but I’ve also thought about attempting to box/finger joint them, or use the Domino to cut keys, and make the keys out of a lighter wood, so that the joints are highlighted.

And then on the outside corners, I’ve been thinking about either dovetailing those joints, which could be really hard (I’d have to mount the jig and run the router on their sides), and alignment would have to be dead-on, or maybe just miter and key-joint them, which could be easier and which I could probably do with the Domino.

-- Dan Lyke, Petaluma California, http://www.flutterby.net/