Need options for moulding ...

[Clarence Martin]

Got some wide baseboard mouldings in the bedrooms of the old house and the trouble is that the old mouldings in many spots leave a gap from 1/8 to 1/4 inch from the hardwoods floors. Thinking of hiding this with some t3/4 inch mouldings for trim on the bottom edges.

Thinking of going with either plain square moulding I could cut on the table saw 3 /4 inch square or cutting round over moulding with the router table.

The other option is PVC moulding.


Anyone make their own mouldings ?

[Lloyd McKinlay]

Use shoe molding stained to match the floor. Slightly narrower than quarter round and looks better.

[Scott Austin]

I prefer a stop or scribe moulding. It adds dimension to base moulding. Yes I have made my own mouldings, makes for a unique look.

[Carter Forbes]

If you have the router table, the shoe molding is good idea. Even buying it is good idea. Square strips with hard corners show wear faster than rounded edges.

[Peter Quinn]

For small moldings like that it may be easier to start with a long wide board and run them with a freehand router, then rip them off, ripped cut becomes the back side, rejoin the show edge on the jointer, route another edge etc. it's not easy to push a wide board through a router table keeping it held down tightly, and it's not entirely safe or effective to push very small narrow strips past a router bit in table. It can be done if fully backed and lots of feather boards are used, but the run and rip method is highly suggested. I usually form the molding on both edges, rip off both edges to keep the balance on the molding blank as well as possible. It all really works better on a shaper or molder where you can skip the rejoins step after each pass because the cutter is set to take 1/16" of the entire face of the molding the fence being off set like a jointer. Most routers are not really capable of that in a single pass and do a minimal cut following a bearing as depth guide. Personally for the work involved and given shoe molding is so readily available I'd consider just buying it. You really want long runs with no scarfs, tough to accomplish on a router table. I built long infeed and out feed tables for my router table before I went with shapers, used to make my own moldings plenty, think back and smile now on what a hard road that was.

[Jim Andrew]

I have made shoe. Rip it 3/4 x 1/2", and run your router down it with a roundover bit. Or use your router table, and some featherboards.

[Bill ThompsonNM]

Tablesaw molding heads are great for this kind of molding and easier than a router.