This fall I am marking a very important milestone. It has been thirty years since I cut my first piece of crown molding. Anniversaries are a good time look back and remember the good old days. Any of the guys I work with can tell you how fast I was and all my joints were so good you could‘t even see them. Seems like all the boards were perfectly straight and gas was seventy cents a gallon.

I believe that first crown molding was three and one half inch wide white pine. I think I remember a lot of short pieces from two different runs. It made for a real struggle to match the miter joints. There was one finish nailer and the compressor was huge and had to have a 220 power source. My miter saw had a nine inch blade with a manual brake that was thumb powered. It would barely cut through each piece of trim after I figured out what was upside down and backward.  I was working for my Dad by the hour but he was paying me almost five dollars an hour.

When I go to work now the boards aren’t perfectly straight, things take a little more time and I can see some of my joints, but on a good day I make more than five dollars an hour. I get to work with a lot of beautiful moldings. They may be twice as big as that first piece of crown but the miter saw I have today makes cutting them a lot easier. These days’ airless nailers would almost let me skip the compressor but I can’t imagine nailing joints and outside corners together with out my headless pinner.

Except for the gas I think these are the good old days. There is one thing I still do like the old days. I don’t cope crown molding. A lot of carpenters will tell you that copping is the only way to get a really good joint. I follow three rules that let me skip the copping step and still get great joints.

The first and most important rule has to do with drywall mud and it is not a trick for filling joints. In my next posting I will tell you about it and the other two rules.

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Categories: General