# Making baseboard and crown molding



## Vrtigo1 (Mar 18, 2010)

My sister just bought an older house that she's remodeling before moving in. She replaced the flooring and drywall in a few rooms and asked me if I could make baseboard and crown molding for her.

Two questions…first is it economically feasible for me to do so, or would it be cheaper to buy it from the Borg? The primary motivation here is cost savings, everything is going to be painted, so we'd probably make it out of MDF or something else suitably cheap.

If it's realistic to DIY it, what kind of material should I be looking at? I assume I could use pine for baseboards and MDF for crown molding? Or am I way off base?


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## 8iowa (Feb 7, 2008)

Making crown molding on the table saw via angled cuts is tedious and marginally safe. This proceedure is probably OK for a particular furniture item, but would likely be overwhelming for doing enough molding for the whole house.

Baseboard, if not overly ornate, can be done on the table saw using a molding head & cutters (not all table saws can do this). Once set up you could run hundreds of board feet thru if you wish. Check out Nick Englers video on using the molding head;

http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/SS_Archives/SS115/SS115_Molder.htm


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## mnguy (Feb 4, 2009)

For paint grade, I would buy from a home center or good lumber yard long before I would try making moulding myself. Unless your sister is matching an existing profile in the house (sounds like she isn't), buy it. If you have a lumber yard nearby, they will have somewhat better quality and a bigger selection of profiles. The Borg is ok for mouldings. One thing you will almost certainly not be able to do is make 16' sections of moulding; many commercial mouldings come in this length, which minimizes joints in the middle of the walls.


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## Vrtigo1 (Mar 18, 2010)

Perfect, that matches up with what I was already thinking. Thanks for the advice.


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## KentS (May 27, 2009)

Buy it. It is not worth making unless you think your time is worth nothing. If you want something unique, that's a different story.

I agree with mnguy, if you have a professional builing supply place where you live, I would go there. The box stores don't have much and the price is unreal.


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## NathanAllen (Oct 16, 2009)

If you have a Menards locally they blow out their jointed pine and straight oak around this time of year, I think we paid around $.60 for the base and $1.50 for the crown in our house.


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## chewbuddy13 (May 28, 2009)

I actually just got done making window and door casings, and base and crown for a room in my house. I was going to paint it so used mdf. It wasn't all that hard, but i do have moulding bits for my router table. It was a little time consuming, but i was able to do custom profiles in the sizes that I wanted. I would suggest if doing anything in mdf, make sure you have good dust collection. I have a DC that feeds into the fence of my router table that gets about 50% of the dust, I had a hell of a mess when I was done.


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## Ger21 (Oct 29, 2009)

Keep in mind that if you buy MDF mouldings, they're primed and smooth, ready for paint. If you make MDF mouldings, they'll need at least two coats of primer, and a lot of sanding, to even get close to the smoothness of store bought ones.

Unless you need something you can't buy, it's a no brainer to buy.


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## LONGHAIR (Dec 16, 2007)

I am in complete agreement with the others. Unless you need a special profile, or a different species of wood, it is better to just buy it.


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