Mitered Corners Tutorial

[tuffy]

I tried to submit this in the Tutorial section but it wasn't very user friendly. So I will try my hand here.

This a tutorial for mitering corners around doorways and windows.

The old adage: Measure twice; cut once.

The following lengths are for each section of the moulding that will fit around a door way.

Length of the right and left pieces: 7 11/16

Length of the top piece: 3 7/16

Mark the sections to be cut.

• Make your cuts on the outside of the mark you made.
  
• By doing this, this avoids accidently cutting the pieces too short.
  
• You can always sand/file down the edge to the correct length
  

After you are done cutting, verify that each piece are to the correct length.

Now that all the cuts have been made, mitered corners can be tricky. Here's one way to explain it in a "mathematical" way.

Imagine a box:

Each corner is a 90 degree angle:

Draw a line from one corner to the other, cutting the square in half. Each angle has been cut in half, making a 45 degree angle.

Combining them again, creates a 90 degree angle.

Now let's take this same concept and apply it making 45 degree mitered cuts. Below represents two pieces of moulding to be cut.

The shaded corners represents the cuts that are to be made:

After making the 45 degree mitered cuts, combining the two sections will now create a 90 degree angle:

Using this concept for the real thing:

I marked my lengths accordingly:

Cutting my lengths:

Marking the corners to be mitered:

After the cutting the corners:

Perfect 90 degree angles/mitered corners:

The doorway before the moulding:

The final product: the doorway with the moulding and mitered corners:

I put the kitchen cabinets in to give the door a little perspective:

I hope this tutorial helps with mitering corners.

[tuffy]

I am working on the Westville DH. I decided to go with another door besides what came in the kit.

[Luanne]

thanks for making this very easy - I avoided a few of these before. Perhaps I've be braver now.

[havanaholly]

I've cut and begun to install molding around Maggie's first floor stair opening, and thought of this thread!