# panel molding help



## jacksondxmg

Hi, my name is brian and i'm a novice at woodworking and this is my first post on the site i would have properly introduced myself but im in a bit of a hurry. I am in the process of putting in panel molding trim. They would look like this if you don't know what i mean










My problem is not putting them in on the level walls i can do that its 45 degree cuts all around, my problem is running them up the staircase like this







.

I know that it is just a box slanted upward like a diamond my only problem is how do i figure out what the angle for the cuts should be in order to make it a box like that and how to cut them, any help is greatly appreciated thanks in advance!


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## cabinetman

An easy way to figure out the angles is to lay a straightedge along the stairs, and use a level to get a perpendicular line. Use a protractor to get the angle. If you are close, the acute angle (the one at the bottom of the stairs) less 180 degrees, will give you the obtuse angle. 

In parallelograms, there are two acute (are =), and two obtuse (are =) angles and they all add up to 360 degrees.


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## jacksondxmg

thanks for the reply cabinetman could i get an angle finder and us it to find the angles because there is chair railing and baseboard that runs up the steps so i can get both angles, but the problem im trying to figure out is how to cut the obtuse angles??


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## Ghidrah

I might tape a couple plumb boards to the wall top and bottom meas up whatever the height of the bottom of the parallel panel is on the same side of both, (top/top or bottom/bottom sides of the plumb board) and then snap a line across both. That gives you the cut on the top and bottom of the stiles, (vertical trim) and the rails, (trim paralleling stairs) which will always be less than 45deg

I don't have much faith in those angle finders for anything important.
Once the apron is in, (trim at risers and treads) everything else is a matter of duplicating height meas and snapping a line to it, (as long as the plumb bubble on your level is dead on) and your speed or bevel squares aren't mangled.


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## jacksondxmg

sorry ghidrah you lost me in that one haha. but how would you cut the angles because they would be lets just say somewhere around 60 - 70 degrees idk exactly and my mitre saw only goes to 45. i have heard of using a block of wood and cutting it at 45 degrees and subtracting setting the mitre and whatever the difference would be but im not sure on exactly how to do that.


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## cabinetman

The acute angles if bisecting the angle will be less than 45*°. *The obtuse angle total is subtracted from 180*°*, and each angle of the pieces will be one half of that. Example: If the obtuse angle is 130*°*, that subtracted from 180*° *is 50*°*. If bisecting the angle, each piece would be 25*°*.


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## jacksondxmg

i hope i understand what you mean cabinetman then i will have no problem doing this. Are you saying take the obtuse angle and say its 120 degress so i would do 180 - 120 giving me 60 degrees so i divide that by 2 and get 30 which would be the angle to cut. Then for the acute angles just take whatever it is and divide by 2 and then those are the angles to cut?


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## cabinetman

That's pretty much it. Try one of each angle with a scrap. Back in the stone age before fancy SCMS's and CMS's, on the job there may have been a wood miter box if I was lucky. I remember doing similar figuring and cuts but more simply by just laying out the pieces and drawing a bisecting line for the cut. Then have a go at it with a backsaw.


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## jacksondxmg

haha i really appreciate it cabinetman, i can understand what you mean because my grandfather was a carpenter and he did everything the old fashioned way and it was amazing with the accuracy and skill he had.


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## Ghidrah

There's nothing stopping you from striking a line of any angle on a piece of wood, offset it with a clamped straight edge and cutting it with a circ. Its how I do scarf joints.


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## Jeremy E

For these type of cuts, I usually take a 5-6 inch wide scrap and cut it at 45 degrees to use as a fence on the miter saw. This way, you get a 45 degree miter with your saw set at zero. 

Lets say you have a 70 degree acute angle to cut. The miter will be half that at 35 degrees. Just swing the miter angle over 10 degrees away from zero, then WATCH YOUR FINGERS. 

Seriously, this brings the blade alot closer to your fingers than you're used to. It's not an unmanagable danger by any means, but just keep it in mind.

It will be alot easier to just cut a block at 45, put it against the saw's fence, and experiment with some scrap 'til you see the geometry for yourself...

Good luck!


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## joesdad

Jeremy E said:


> For these type of cuts, I usually take a 5-6 inch wide scrap and cut it at 45 degrees to use as a fence on the miter saw. This way, you get a 45 degree miter with your saw set at zero.
> 
> Lets say you have a 70 degree acute angle to cut. The miter will be half that at 35 degrees. Just swing the miter angle over 10 degrees away from zero, then WATCH YOUR FINGERS.
> 
> Seriously, this brings the blade alot closer to your fingers than you're used to. It's not an unmanagable danger by any means, but just keep it in mind.
> 
> It will be alot easier to just cut a block at 45, put it against the saw's fence, and experiment with some scrap 'til you see the geometry for yourself...
> 
> Good luck!


:laughing: I thought I was the only psycho who's always done it this way...that's why I usually don't comment when somebody wants to know how to cut these angles...not to mention none of my job-site miter saws have guards on them either.


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## Hammer1

An easy way to find the angle is to place your molding on the installation line, mark both edges, do the same on the adjoining piece, then mark the intersection, from long point to short point. Helps a lot to use some 1x2 scraps to test the fit before committing to the molding.


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## jacksondxmg

Alright i did manage to figure it out with the 45 degree piece of scrap, The way i did it was to find the acute angle you would take the obtuse angle and divide by 2 and there you go thats the acute angle mitre cuts but you need a 45 degree subfence, and vise-versa for the obtuse angle. So say my angles are 50 and 130, in order to cut the obtuse angles i would simply take the 50 and divide by 2 getting 25 and thats the miters. Then for the acute angle you take 130 and divide by 2 getting 65, but in order to cut 65 degrees on a normal miter saw you have to make a 45 degree piece of scrap for the fence like so








So really you only cut at 20 degrees because you're already at 45 with the sub fence.

So really simply it is:
Obtuse angle = acute angle / 2

Acute angle = (obtuse angle / 2) - 45 ***but need a 45 degree subfence***

Thank you to everyone that helped me figure this out especially cabinetman and FrankC, i really appreciate it all!


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## phildeez

I'm looking to do this exact same thing up my stairs and in my hall way. However I have a bit of a dilemma on how to end/finish on the corner. Take a look at the attached picture. The red lines indicate where the chair rail will be. Do I need to do something on the corner to make it look complete? Such as running the chair rail up the hall way side of the corner and making the two connect? If you can provide any pictures that would be extremely helpful. 

I'm also wanting to do it on the wall in the entry way and end it at the corner but again not sure what would look best on finishing it at the corner. Do I need to take the chair rail and run it vertically on the corner, or don't do the vertical and just miter the corner or cap it?


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## craftsman jay

phildeez said:


> I'm looking to do this exact same thing up my stairs and in my hall way. However I have a bit of a dilemma on how to end/finish on the corner. Take a look at the attached picture. The red lines indicate where the chair rail will be. Do I need to do something on the corner to make it look complete? Such as running the chair rail up the hall way side of the corner and making the two connect? If you can provide any pictures that would be extremely helpful.
> 
> I'm also wanting to do it on the wall in the entry way and end it at the corner but again not sure what would look best on finishing it at the corner. Do I need to take the chair rail and run it vertically on the corner, or don't do the vertical and just miter the corner or cap it?


If your not running it any further then cut it short of the corner. Personally, I don't love the look. But it works.


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## cabinetman

craftsman jay said:


> If your not running it any further then cut it short of the corner. Personally, I don't love the look. But it works.



What else doesn't look bad is to 45 degree the face of the end of the trim where it ends. Looks more like it belongs than just a straight cut.












 





.
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## BigJim

craftsman jay said:


> If your not running it any further then cut it short of the corner. Personally, I don't love the look. But it works.


Or make a return there. 
Here is where a good looking corner mold serving as a kill for both molds would look good.


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## jack warner

personally i would contenue it around the corner.


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## MGB

Hammer1 said:


> An easy way to find the angle is to place your molding on the installation line, mark both edges, do the same on the adjoining piece, then mark the intersection, from long point to short point. Helps a lot to use some 1x2 scraps to test the fit before committing to the molding.


This

I don't have to do it often but instead of drawing it out, I take a few pieces of scrap and a speed square, you'll have your angle in a couple mins. I don't buy into the digital angle reader e.t.c. when you've learned this method.


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## MastersHand

cabinetman said:


> What else doesn't look bad is to 45 degree the face of the end of the trim where it ends. Looks more like it belongs than just a straight cut.
> 
> 
> 
> .
> .


The easiest way to do this is as follows.your bevel gauge on these angles will give You an acute reading.but You know it's obtuse. However use the reading and set the saw at that anyway but instead of putting the molding longest to fence like you normally would you come straight in to the fence at 90 degrees. If you put a framing square or square block of wood against your fence and set molding against square the molding pointing against fence.make cut gives you that long tapered cut your looking for.I made a plywood fence for saw and then a piece of plywood with a piece nailed to it like an L .This piece slides along base parallel to fence. This helps having molding sucked forward when you make cut


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## stu99

*paralallogram*

i am trying to cut molding for the stairs and it needs to be a paralallogram. the angle to the stairs is 42 degrees. I have figured out that i set the miter saw at 21 degrees for the 2 opposite corners and that i need to cut 69 degrees for the other 2 and i use a precut 45 degree scarf board. but the miters aren't matching up and have quite a gap. i don't know what i am doing wrong. could someone give advice?
thanks:huh:


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## craftsman jay

If you used something like the pic below then youre almost there. I like to cut test pieces to make sure they fit nice and tight. Several different angles. (70,69,68). If those are way off then your jig isn't 45*, your math is off, or you're moving the piece when cut. 

Hope that helps.

www.craftsmanjay.com


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## dining sets

Good luck!


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## stu99

Thanks Craftsman jay for your reply. I managed to do some nice paralellograms, but my new problem is that the first parallelogram at the bottom of the stairs and last parallelogram at the top of the stairs needs to have one side parallel to the corner/ edge of the wall (which is vertical). If not it slants away from the vertical edge of the wall at the bottom and towards the vertical edge of the wall at the top......it doesn't look right. The only way I can figure it is to extend the top rail on the parallelogram at the top of the stairs and cut this end at a 45 angle with a 35 miter and cut the top end of the vertical at a 30 and fill in the void with wood filler. This was for the top one and I intend to do the opposite for the bottom one. It took me all day to figure this out but there has to be a neater and faster way to figure this out. In other words these two parallelograms are no lone parallelograms but some other weird shaped rectangle that I don't know the name of.


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## clampman

Stu,

Take a look at Jay's second picture above. That is how you eliminate those odd shaped panels.

When coming into any corner with a board or molding that is on an angle (like the stairs for instance), you must first miter that board or molding so it is perpendicular to the corner before going around it, whether it is an inside or outside corner.

To be truthful, I don't have a clue what you are talking about, however. Are the boards between your panels (stiles) vertical?

Cheers,
Jim


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