Hello I have a problem and I hope that someone can help. I am building a marquise(covered entrance)on a historic home under renovation. the roof is like a barrel vault with short flats at each side. The top of the roof is a radius of 47″ I need a way to fit crown moulding along the radius arc and then match up to crown at the flats and on the returns to the wall. Has anyone made curved crown before and what did you do? Bob
Edited 2/3/2004 5:39:27 PM ET by Bob
Replies
All of the curved crown I've seen was done with plaster and a special forming tool.
PlaneWood by Mike_in_Katy (maker of fine sawdust!)
PlaneWood
Its possible to get a flexible plastic crown designed just for the application you describe. Check with a ( good ) local lumber yard and ask about flex trim. The flex crown will match the same crown profile as straight as long as you spec that.
Does it Paint? You can buy crown that's like rubber bends. A good painter can finish it to match your wood if not painted.
See if you can find a shop with a Williams and Hussey moulder they could handle it.To hog it out with a router then scrape it would be a killer
Several different methods can be used. I made 8 curved pieces of crown just last summer for a situation like yours. I made forms and then laminated sections together for the proper thickness and ran the pieces on a shop made curved fence through a tilting spindle shaper with a power feed. The williams and hussey could not handle a knife taking a 4" deep cut.
If you have a shaper , or a router table I would use the method described by Phil Lowe in FWW #166. Since your piece is a radius you can run it around the birds beak quite easily with predictable results. Then use the same bits to make the straight moulding.
Another way is to fill in the back portion of two pieces of crown with solid wood so that you essentially have two solid pieces of crown. Then rip off alternating strips about an eighth in thickness and re-glue to a form of the desired radius.
I would probably opt for the birds beak method because I've used the rip and strip method which usually requires alot of sanding after the glue up.
Let me know if you have any questions. I can probably think of a few more ways but this should help get your ideas flowing.
J.P.
Edited 2/4/2004 5:19:48 PM ET by j.p.
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