Window/door trim molding challenge

[Duane N]

A friend of mine has an older home and he did some remodeling.  He thought it was going to be quick and painless until he got to the point of re-installing the pine molding which he thought he could go pick up at a local home center.  Negative...he was told it was most likely custom trim specific for the houses the builder/carpenter made for the houses in the neighborhood. 

Knowing I dabble in woodworking he handed me a small piece to see if I could match it...he needs 40' of it to finish his remodel.  After I got my hands on the piece I checked a few other local sources that specialize in custom trim and they repeated what he was told...they have something close but not exact.

So this is the challenge he gave me.  He's going to supply the material and help me and he's going to repay me for my effort 4-5 pieces of rough sawn 5/4 Cherry boards 8"-12" wide and 12'-14' long each he acquired from someone he did some work for himself.

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[jteneyck]

So, what's your plan?

John

[Duane N]

So, what's your plan?

John

A lot of praying.


Router, table saw and a hand plane to get it close then some sanding.   I got up to the curve that drops down on the left side of the molding in the picture and that's what I'm still trying to figure out how to accomplish.  I checked one more wood supplier this afternoon and they had a set of knives that were close but not exact so it's back to plan "A" which is the hard way.

[cwarner]

Could you file a scraper to the exact shape you need, get it close with your tools then refine with the scraper?

[Woodworm!]

Seems to me, it would be better to have someone make a set knives, and run the stock through a planer.

[museumguy]

If I'm not mistaken, we charge $300 for a set of knives to be ground and we keep the knives. That plus a fee for the wood and a fee to make the molding. You'd be surprised how many people go for it.

[barryvabeach]

Duane, for 40 feet of it,  that is pretty long to do with hand planes, and too short, IMO, to justify  custom knives.  You might be able to do most of the cutting with a table saw and a router table.  You would do a series of rabbet cuts and router cuts -  provided you make the cuts in a particular order you could get very close .    This site has some great illustrations of the planing an technique using a rabbet plane and hollows and rounds  http://musingsfrombigpink.blogspot.com/2...ounds.html      Instead of the rabbet plane, I would use a tablesaw, and choose the order and depth of the cut to remove most of the wood.  You can always knock the corner off a scraper to smooth any transitions.

[fredhargis]

Is there any commercial trim that's close enough to the profile you could modify it slightly to get it to match?

[Duane N]

The cost of a set of custom knives and the set up fee eliminated that possibility.  For that cost he could re-trim his entire house which is something he doesn't want to do.  Some of the 40' of this trim is for future re-models he plans on doing which is adding a door and a closet.

I know a metal fabricator with a machine that can possibly cut a profile out of something that I can use as a scraper and probably what we'll end up doing once we get it "close". 

Both of us have tried every local place we can think of that may have something like this or close but not something we can use.

I plan on working on some scrap pieces today to see if it's worth the effort to accomplish this profile then I'll go from there.

[museumguy]

Ok, here's a wild thought. Has he checked any neighboring houses to see if they have the same profile? Maybe someone has the same trim, maybe they are doing a remodel as well.

Also, what about inside of closets. Are they trimmed out with the same molding? Could he take the trim from the inside where it wouldn't be noticed.

Just a thought.