Making my own trim

[Wes Billups]

I'm nearing the trim portion of my basement finishing project and want to match the existing trim in the rest of the house. The house was built in 2003 but I'm having trouble finding a supplier of the existing trim.

All the trim and doors are stained poplar. I have a Jet molding/planer that I've never used as a molder. I'm looking for recommendations as to whether I'd be better off buying molding in pine or getting custom knives and running my own with poplar. I need approximately 250' each of the baseboard and casing. Getting costs at the normal big box stores tells me I could afford to spend a few hundred dollars on custom knives.

What does everyone think? My worry is finding enough stain grade poplar in the area.

If you recommend the custom knife option, I'd like to know where to get the knives.

Thanks,
Wes Billups

[Mike Tubbs]

Contact a wholesale trim supplier in your area. They will have many more profiles than HD or Lowe's.

[Josiah Bartlett]

If you can find it at a wholesale supplier it will probably be cheaper, but if you get a custom knife made it will give you a good sense of satisfaction.

http://www.customouldingknives.com/ has a lot of profiles and a good price list.

[Philip Rodriquez]

Don't do that, the trim you have is standard stuff (see link below). You would be blowing a bunch of money and time. You just need to use the yellow pages. Try Trim or Millworks. Additionally, your hardwood supplier should also know of a few sources.

You are nowhere close to my area but here is my supplier.
http://www.starklumber.com/stocked.html

[William Schmitz]

I am making my own trim now, but my house is from 1870. The thickness of 7/8" also led me towards starting with 5/4 rough poplar.

Cayce makes nice knives.

[Paul Greathouse]

Wes

I have also used customouldingknives.com as Josiah suggested. I bought two different profiles from them to make some of the trim for my recent bathroom remodel. I have the Shop Fox planer/moulder and the trim came out great. I went with the Black Nitride for my knives.

The knives are expensive but I plan on using these profiles quite a bit and even though the profiles I bought can be had in stock trim, I will still save alot of money over buying stock trim because I have the luxury of having my own logs sawed into lumber. In your case, you would have to compare the cost of the knives and poplar lumber verses buying the stock trim.

[Matt Meiser]

Wes, I've gotten stain-grade poplar at The Andersons. I think there's one one in northwest Columbus.

[Drew Sanderson]

Another vote for customouldingknives.com. He did a great job for me