Crown Molidng in a Room With Cathedral or Vaulted Ceiling

[George Bokros]

Has anyone installed crown molding in a room with either a cathedral or vaulted ceiling?

I have a master bedroom with a vaulted ceiling and we are planning on installing crown molding in the room. I believe I have the corners figured out. I had some left over crown from another project and did some test cutting today and have the corners figured out just need to adjust the angles a touch but it fits pretty good at this point.

George

[Rich Engelhardt]

George,
Gary Katz has a good starting tutorial for vaulted ceilings.

http://www.garymkatz.com/TrimTechniques/cutting_crown_transitions.html

[Colin Helms]

George,

I'm with Rich above and go to Gary Katz site, I've done 2 jobs using his information and it turned out nice.
Good luck.

Colin

[Peter Quinn]

I don't want to disrespect the Katz method, but IMHO that transition block looks terrible. Not a fan. I'd rather skip the crown than look at that. He shows a pendant for the outside corners, I've seen those used on inside corners to make the transition and they can look great if done well, probably easier too. Just my preference.

As he starts off noting, the archececturally correct thing to do is to have two different crowns, the basic horizontal molding, and a second one extrapolated from the first to go up the rake angle. For each rake angle there is one crown which works, and it usually lays flatter and is a bit elongated versus the horizontal profile. That said I know of no millwork shops that stock rake crowns and few jobs are willing to pay for the custom knives and molder set up required to get it done, thus the work arounds.

[George Bokros]

The Katz method is similar to the method shown on http://www.compoundmiter.com except for the cutting of the backside of the molding.

George

[phil harold]

As he starts off noting, the architecturally correct thing to do is to have two different crowns, the basic horizontal molding, and a second one extrapolated from the first to go up the rake angle. For each rake angle there is one crown which works, and it usually lays flatter and is a bit elongated versus the horizontal profile. That said I know of no millwork shops that stock rake crowns and few jobs are willing to pay for the custom knives and molder set up required to get it done, thus the work arounds.

See in reality with a table saw, router, plane and scarper it is not that hard to making the matching crown yourself I mean how big is the room 25' long max
so make 50-60' of crown to match is not hard make just a a bunch of steps that take time...
Time is money so most people with use the pendant method

Another way is to go to a mill that already has a set of paired knifes close to what you need

[Mel Fulks]

I agree that the only way it looks right is with a correct rake mould. If you decide to do that pick a good level crown .The modern crowns are more straight up or "laid back" than the old ones which were at 45 degree angle and had more contour. When one does make a rake to go with modern crown the rake can be too flat to be worth the trouble of nailing it up. When I have made formal pediments requiring special rake mould I picked the level crown from knives previously ground for restoration work. It might be possible to work backwards by getting some small samples of modern crown to possibly be used for the RAKE , THEN DRAW OUT THE NEEDED CROWN to match one of those samples and "find or grind "the crown.Its not hard to find directions for drawing using intersecting lines. I do think there are other treatments that would look good without using crown on cathedral ceiling.