WTB: Handtool, Molding planes for baseboard trim

[jppierson]

I admire your ambition in making your own mouldings with hand planes but I would not recommend it unless you are matching a small section in a historic home.

I'm sure someone in your area makes custom mouldings.  Check with your local hardwood suppliers for suggestions.

We are fortunate to have a local company with thousands of profiles to choose from.  https://masonsmillandlumber.com/pages/profile-library

+1 on hardwood dealers.

I had to replace baseboard moldings in a 15x16 dining room. I went to a hardwood dealer who produces custom moldings. I initially wanted to match the other baseboards in the house that are 8" tall. I only needed a 10ft run of exact match. They had a litany of moldings produced for other customers that we used as a starting place to produce what we needed. As it turned out, we chose a molding close but to but not identical with the existing stuff in the other rooms. The doorways into the dining room provide enough visual break that an exact match between rooms is not required. So I avoided the expense of buying custom shaper blades, and only had to pay the setup fee for the run of molding for the whole room vs just 10ft of exact match (which would still have a setup fee). Since you are doing 1600 sqft worth, it will be affordable to do a run for your entire job since there is only one setup fee amortized over the total length of molding required. The advantage is you end up with higher quality material for very close to the cost of mdf. Buy extra, you will need it. Because you are using wood vs man-made there may be defects or mistakes you can't live with and you don't want to pay the setup fee again for the one "stick" you are short.

[Chris Watson]

I'm grateful for all the replies and links to information. Once again the wisdom of the members comes through. It seems as much I would like to mold my own baseboards, consensus is it would be an exercise in extreme frustration and very difficult. This makes me admire the woodworkers of the past even more who did this by hand before machinery. I've located some vendors online that do hardwood molding, no doubt with machinery. Any recommendations?

[Chris Watson]

That is great advice, thank you. I didn't think about pieces being imperfect and needing extra! I'm so used to today's mass produced stuff that looks perfect but is made from trashy components that I figured just getting hardwood would fix the trashy components issue. You saved me a lot of stress and money


Thank you.