# Crown Moulding by Hand



## BZawat

A client of mine recently hired me to reproduce the returns on her fireplace mantle, which is really just a big beefy old crown moulding. The house is a 125 year old victorian estate, all the wood throughout is QS white oak. The mantle itself is a prow front, which is pretty neat. Here's a few pics





















So I did some homework, figured out the radii used to make it, and bought a few old moulding planes from everyone's favorite online auction giant. Read a few articles. Watched a YouTube video. Spent a few hours touch-up shaping & honing the irons and was ready to go. 











So I started experimenting with a chunk of Doug fir 4x4 so as not to mutilate my white oak stock. I laid out the profile on the end of the piece










And used the TS to cut away the bulk of the waste. 





















I don't have a snipe bill plane, so I used a little Stanley 75 to cut a groove in the center of the inside radius to give the round plane something to follow. I roughed out the outside radius with a Stanley 220, worked great. 

Then I went to work with the moulding planes, carefully working the whole radius down to my lines on either side. A little light sanding and there it is































The returns will be about 3' long, so they will be a bit more challenging. But I feel comfortable enough with the moulding planes that I can't wait to dig into it! First to take this mock-up to the client's & check the fit.


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## tc65

That is some great work!

Be sure to keep us updated when you start in on the oak.


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## cabinetman

Nice work...looks very good. I think I would have made it as a build up moulding.








 







.


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## Acercanto

Very nice! Are you going to try to reproduce the concave curve of the mantle? If so, how does one do that with planes?

Acer


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## MasterSplinter

Awesome work


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## Sprung

Looks great! Awesome work!


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## Dominick

Sweet job Brian!!!
You keep pushing the envelope, and your skills are improving. 
Way to go bud!!!


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## Keith Mathewson

Very nicely done. You don't need a snipes bill, you would use a rabbet plane for that.


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## BZawat

Acercanto said:


> Very nice! Are you going to try to reproduce the concave curve of the mantle? If so, how does one do that with planes?
> 
> Acer


No, I'm not touching the front of the mantle. The returns which go back either side of the chimney and tie into the bookcases have been lost to history at some point. So I've just got to straight shots of molding instead of that curved prow front. That would be pretty tricky to do I think. I believe you would need a compass hollow and round plane


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## BZawat

Keith Mathewson said:


> Very nicely done. You don't need a snipes bill, you would use a rabbet plane for that.


Thanks Keith. I have to say, I got the idea to try to make the molding by hand after I saw an article you had written for the "this is carpentry" website. The article was about using hand tooling to make complimentary molding pairs in a staircase trim application. Just a few days before I read your article, my client had asked me if I could reproduce that molding for her. I scratched my head and couldn't figure out how I could do it economically. Then I came across that article, and the light bulb came on


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## woodnthings

*very nice Brian!*

Everytime you post a photo that includes the shop, I get the impression that this is a "pro" shop you are working in with lots of big machines. I remember you saying something like that in an earlier thread ? How about some more photos, or a shop tour?


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## BWSmith

Very nice!


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## BZawat

woodnthings said:


> Everytime you post a photo that includes the shop, I get the impression that this is a "pro" shop you are working in with lots of big machines. I remember you saying something like that in an earlier thread ? How about some more photos, or a shop tour?


I work in a commercial cabinet shop, so yeah there are some big fancy machines. My boss gives me the run of the shop whenever I need to be there. Actually he encourages it. Great guy. 

Since we're in commercial cabinetry ("architectural" woodworking, if you will) most of what we do is plywood/melamine & plastic laminate/wood veneer, and laminate & corian counter tops. We do bank teller lines, store fixtures, and office cabinetry. So the machinery is geared toward that. There's no shaper, industrial planer, bandsaw, or jointer (until I brought my jointer in & bought a used Grizzly bandsaw a few months ago). We have an Altendorf WA-8 horizontal panel saw, a Holzma HPP 350 beam saw, a Brandt edge bander and a Weeke CNC router, as well as a spray booth & finishing room upstairs. I'll take some pics for you later today.

EDIT: so much for hand tools, eh? Lol! I'll post your pics in the power tool forum Bill


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## BZawat

woodnthings said:


> Everytime you post a photo that includes the shop, I get the impression that this is a "pro" shop you are working in with lots of big machines. I remember you saying something like that in an earlier thread ? How about some more photos, or a shop tour?


Check the "Show us your shop" sticky. Leo is making fun of my jointer lol


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## Lilblee

Beautiful work, I woulda cheated and made it a 3 piece.

Sent from my iPhone using Wood Forum


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## Dave Paine

I managed to miss this thread before, so late to the party.

Well done Brian. Very nice work. Thanks for posting. 

Good to see how this was done back in the old days. :thumbsup:


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## firemedic

Nice job, looks great! :thumbup:


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## Anguspapa

That is amazing! Quite a bit of talent at work there.

Eric Williams


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## Keith Mathewson

Dave Paine said:


> Good to see how this was done back in the old days.


Many are still produced that way today, just for the reasons the OP listed. The back log of orders at Clark & Williams is so many years long that they have stopped taking orders.


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## BZawat

Finally got back to this project this weekend, and into the white oak. Milled up a pile of WO to ~13/16" thick and ripped to rough dimensions, then glued up two 5"x3 3/8" blocks 4' long. Cut rabbets on the TS











Starting to take shape


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## tc65

That is some beautiful work! Thanks for keeping us updated with your progress.

BTW - what type of finish are you going to use? I assume you are going to have to match the existing mantle?


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## BZawat

One down and one to go! 






















I haven't decided on what to use for finish yet, Tim. You're correct - it's gotta match the existing mantle, which is pretty dark and over 100 years old. So I'm not quite sure yet. I'm thinking of using gel stain (or blending a couple) to get the nice rich color, and finishing on site with a satin water based poly.


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## jjboozel

BZawat said:


> One down and one to go! I haven't decided on what to use for finish yet, Tim. You're correct - it's gotta match the existing mantle, which is pretty dark and over 100 years old. So I'm not quite sure yet. I'm thinking of using gel stain (or blending a couple) to get the nice rich color, and finishing on site with a satin water based poly.


That Is really impressive!


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## BZawat

Thanks! You oughta give it a shot, its not as hard as you might think. You just need really sharp irons, a nice light set, and smooth even full-length strokes to keep the profile straight. I used a Stanley 78 for nearly all the hand rabbeting & final dimensioning. Rough rabbeting was done on the TS to save time.


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## BZawat

Here's the latest update in the mantle restoration saga. This job is dragging on, mainly because the client is not pushing the issue and I've had other more pressing things to take care of. But as it stands, I've rounded 3rd. All that's left now is to figure out the matching stain/finish combination. I'm really leaning towards an amber shellac over whatever stain color I end up coming up with. Pretty sure that's the original finish used. It's just so hard to duplicate the patina. Anyway, a couple pics for your viewing pleasure. Hope to have finished shots by this weekend.


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## tc65

That looks really good. Good luck with the finish - looking forward to hearing what "recipe" you come up with to match.


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## gideon

really, really nice.


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## Dave Paine

Thanks for the update. Looking even better in place. :thumbsup:

Good luck with matching the colour. As you stated colour is one thing, but patina is another.


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## BZawat

Well the mantle saga comes to an end. Very fun job, and a great learning experience. 

Finish was a 4 step schedule:
Custom blend of Old Masters wiping stain (best brand I've ever used, hands down) 3 parts rich mahogany, 1 1/2 parts Spanish oak, ~1 part American walnut. 
Coat of amber shellac
Glaze coat of stain mix for tone
2 more coats of amber shellac































Thanks for following fellas


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## firemedic

Turned out great, man!


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## Tom King

Very nice!!


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## blackpearl

Quite an inspiring thread. To know it was done by hand! Great work.


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## Tom King

I had forgotten that this was an old thread, and answered it again.

Great work! Keep looking for a reasonably priced snipes bill though. If you run into something with a small enough quirk, there's nothing else that will do it as easily. I've gotten a couple for around 35 bucks, but as you know that's not normal. I found them listed as something else.

If you find a snipes bill that needs some of the Boxwood boxing replaced, contact me, and I'll send you some. You can get them really cheap if the boxing is beat up

All my molding planes are old ones too. When you can buy ones that work fine, if you know how to sharpen and tune a plane, for fifteen or twenty bucks, I cannot understand why someone would pay a couple of hundred bucks for one.


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## Oneal-Woodworking

blackpearl said:


> Quite an inspiring thread. To know it was done by hand! Great work.


 
This is one of our members that has his **** together for sure... 

:yes:


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## BZawat

Tom King said:


> I had forgotten that this was an old thread, and answered it again.
> 
> Great work! Keep looking for a reasonably priced snipes bill though. If you run into something with a small enough quirk, there's nothing else that will do it as easily. I've gotten a couple for around 35 bucks, but as you know that's not normal. I found them listed as something else.
> 
> If you find a snipes bill that needs some of the Boxwood boxing replaced, contact me, and I'll send you some. You can get them really cheap if the boxing is beat up
> 
> All my molding planes are old ones too. When you can buy ones that work fine, if you know how to sharpen and tune a plane, for fifteen or twenty bucks, I cannot understand why someone would pay a couple of hundred bucks for one.



Thanks Tom. I had a line on a nice 1800's snipe bill from an English maker, but I missed the end of the auction because I was busy. Missed it by like 5 minutes. Sold for 55 bucks. I was not happy lol

I looked at planes by MS Bickford online and couldn't believe what he is getting for them!!!! I mean it would be nice to have a crisp brand-new full set, but not for those prices.


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