How To Cut Ceiling Plinth Corners With Miter Box Correctly

How to cut wide skirting boards. Docking of ceiling fillets without industrial miter box

Factory miter box. This is an aluminum, plastic or wooden tray with depressions 45 0 or 90 0. Such a device is rarely used at home, so it is not found in everyone. But few also know how to cut a ceiling plinth without a miter box, so we will consider a few simple solutions that will allow you to dock the ceiling plinths in the corners of the room with great accuracy.

When renovating an apartment, the installation of a new ceiling is often necessary to create a complete design idea. The completed ceiling is decorated with beautiful fillet skirting boards. The baguettes are glued, nailed or screwed along the perimeter of the room, their position is previously marked in the corners at the joints of the walls and ceiling. Ceiling cornices are often rigid and solid strips (although there are elastic silicone ones), so they need to be beautifully docked in the corners of the room with each other, and without a miter box it is difficult to do this, but it is possible.

Fillets for framing the corners of the ceiling are made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), expanded polystyrene (PPU), polyurethane (PU), polystyrene (PS), polystyrene (PP), wood or metal:

• Foam decorative cornice is fragile, but this does not matter for unloaded ceiling structures. PP skirting boards can have different widths, the standard length is 1 meter, the surface is bas-relief with various patterns;
• Expanded polystyrene. the material is dense, easy to install, the edges of the cornice do not crumble during cutting;
• Aluminum or wood is the most difficult to dock. you need great accuracy, which is difficult to achieve without the use of a miter box. It is recommended to cut the corners of such curtain rods with a sheet for metal, to calculate the correct cutting angle, use the methods below.

Products and the nuances of their application:

Parameters and requirements

Polyvinyl chloride is easily crushed, after which it is not restored. When machining requires care and minimal pressure

Cut with a carpenter’s cutter or a hacksaw for metal

The foam plank is fragile and crumbles easily. It is recommended to cut the PP skirting board with a very sharp cutter or a special tool. an electric nichrome cutter

Cut with a carpenter’s cutter or a hacksaw for metal, hot wire clamped in clamps

Durable and aesthetic material.

Popular materials

How and how to properly cut a plastic baseboard

Plinth is an indispensable part of room design. For example, plastic products are gradually replacing wooden ones. Functionality and convenience are inherent in this finishing material, and it creates an aesthetic flow of the wall to the floor or to the ceiling. In the absence of finishing, containing the presence of plinth strips, even offices designed in the same style seem unfinished. The problem lies in the loose abutment of the floor slab to the wall. This creates rough seams that are removed by skirting boards. Fixation is easy to carry out without the help of professionals, it is based on knowledge of how to cut a plastic skirting board and in what ways to install.

How to properly cut the skirting boards to the ceiling. How to properly cut the corners of ceiling plinths: both with and without a miter box

Choosing the right tool

How to trim the material? This question is maturing for almost any novice builder. The selected cutting tool will affect the evenness of the cut edge. PVC skirting boards contain a hollow-filled structure, therefore the use of tools containing large teeth or a wide wave is not encouraged due to the high risk of chipping and numerous irregularities.

For a plinth cut, it is better to use a hacksaw for metal. Its structure is characterized by sharp, rather fine teeth and an acceptable working width. The use of a hacksaw only applies to panels. Thin-walled skirting boards will get an uneven shape due to the influence of the teeth.

Hand jigsaw is the best tool for cutting ceiling plank corners.

Any plastic product will be cut absolutely straight. But, the jigsaw has a drawback. its small size. This will greatly affect the speed of repair work due to the large number of canvases. Abrasive files should not be used while working with a jigsaw, as the first tool will significantly complicate the whole procedure.

Thin-walled skirting boards are best cut with a regular utility knife with a hardened blade. Obtaining a clear and even cut will occur only if you have a lot of experience with the tool and material of this type, so beginners will have a rather difficult time.

Different materials and their features

• . The most durable material in comparison with the other two below, the advantages of which are in hardness, impact resistance and the ability to withstand certain mechanical loads. Nevertheless, wooden skirting boards (another name. fillets), glued to the ceiling, are also relatively easy to process. they can be cut (a hacksaw is used for this), varnished. Wood will add warmth to the interior. Of the minuses, the cost is higher than that of foam. However, wooden fillets also retain their appearance longer than foam fillets.

Styrofoam. Perhaps this material is the most fragile. it is unstable to mechanical damage, scratches and even minor impacts. Of the advantages. light weight, the ability to paint in various colors and ease of processing (it can be cut with a clerical knife. however, very carefully).

Expanded polystyrene. This material can be considered a type of foam, however, its strength characteristics are slightly higher (extruded polystyrene foam is denser than foam). As for processing. expanded polystyrene is just as easy to cut with an ordinary sharp knife, and also has a low weight, and this is an important factor when considering the load on the walls.

How to cut a plinth floor. How and how to properly cut a plastic baseboard

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• How to properly cut the skirting boards to the ceiling. How to properly cut the corners of ceiling plinths: both with and without a miter box
• Different materials and their features
• How to cut the corners of a skirting board with a miter box. How to properly cut corners on skirting boards
• How to cut wide skirting boards. Docking of ceiling fillets without industrial miter box
• How to cut a plinth floor. How and how to properly cut a plastic skirting board
• How and how to properly cut a plastic baseboard
• Choosing the right tool
• Miter box cutting
• Video how to cut corners on a ceiling plinth

How to connect with a door trim

You know neatly how to make a corner on a plinth, but that’s not all. The room most often has doors. By the way, they must be installed before fixing the baseboards. So, you still need to correctly dock the skirting boards with the platbands on the door. If you just cut it straight, it turns out rough. There are plugs for plastic. not the most elegant way, but quite acceptable. Wooden ones can also be trimmed by cutting off the “face” obliquely. Also “not ice”, but already something. And what to do with MDF skirting boards, because the saw cut from them is unpresentable? There is a way to make a beautiful junction with the jambs. You will need to make two cuts at an angle of 45 degrees (see photo below).

How to properly arrange the joint between the skirting board and the door jamb

If the edge is not even, we first cut it off strictly perpendicularly. With respect to the aligned edge, make a 45 degree cut. A small cut off piece will be useful for us to design the junction. We make the second cut at 90 degrees relative to the first, but if we lower the perpendicular from the angle, we also get 45 °.

How to make a neat jamb fit

Now we take the first cut piece, attach it to the just made cut with the long side. It turns out a beautiful rounded cut. If there are chamfers, grooves on the plinth, they match perfectly. In the case of woody patterns, you cannot be sure that the lines match. Anyway, such a joint between the skirting board and the door casing is much more aesthetically pleasing.

Methods for cutting plastic skirting boards

Cutting skirting boards is seemingly simple, but responsible. If the corners are cut incorrectly, then they will not fit correctly and all the work will go down the drain, since the product will no longer have a beautiful appearance. there will be gaps between two sections of the plinth and decorative inserts (corners, joining elements, etc.).

Most often, an ordinary metal hacksaw, which has fine teeth, is used to cut the plinth. However, it will not work for thin skirting boards, since the product will simply break under the influence of this tool.

Plastic skirting board cutting angle grinder

Sometimes the plinth is cut with metal scissors. But the method also has its drawbacks, because the product can be crumpled under the pressure of the blades. Less common, but still used is an angle grinder. However, the cutting line after cutting can be inaccurate, as the tool often “tears” soft plastic. Especially often this method turns out to be unsuccessful for beginners in the world of repair, who still do not know how to fully control the work. So the angle grinder can be attributed to rather specific methods.

Metal scissors

On a note! You can use a sharpened knife or utility knife to cut thin skirting boards. But such work requires some skill, therefore it is recommended to first practice on the scraps of the old plastic baseboard.

The most important thing in the procedure for cutting skirting boards is observing the required geometry. The procedure is never performed “by eye”, the accuracy of measurements and accuracy are important here. Therefore, there are other methods for cutting skirting boards.

The absence of fittings implies the use of other methods of connecting skirting boards. This is an option with and without clipping templates.

Cutting skirting boards for ceiling decoration

Another type of ceiling plinth is made of extruded polystyrene foam. They are much denser than ordinary foam products (therefore they do not crumble), they are a little more expensive, but they are also somewhat more difficult to cut. For work, you can use the same knife or hacksaw for metal.

The most expensive skirting boards are made of polyurethane. These are elastic, strong and moisture resistant products that are very easy to cut with a construction knife. True, they cannot be used in all rooms, since polyurethane is sensitive to high temperatures. it deforms, begins to crack or crack.

For working with wooden skirting boards, only a hacksaw with fine teeth is suitable, you can use a metal tool.

Joinery mills are classified according to three criteria: size, material of manufacture and type of construction. According to the first criterion, there are standard products designed for processing narrow and medium moldings, and large models that allow cutting high floor and wide ceiling plinths. The width of the slots in the overall products is no different from that of medium and small samples, however, the side walls of the tray and the width of its base are much larger.

According to the material of manufacture, joinery mills are divided into wooden, plastic and metal.

Stencil cutting

The method is recommended for cutting products intended for installation in non-standard-shaped rooms with angles that differ from the standard mark of 90 degrees. Stencils for the desired angle can be made from paper or thin cardboard. First, strips are cut from the rough material, which have exactly the same width as the skirting board. Then they are applied to the corner and fixed, after which they are cut to the shape of the corner. Then, according to the stencils received, the skirting board itself is cut at the required angle.

Stencil cutting of plastic skirting boards

Fillet cutting for outer corner

Outside corners in a room are not so common, but they require particularly careful cutting of fillets and precise joining of their sides. Unlike the internal ones, small gaps in the external ones are more noticeable and difficult to hide. You also need to take into account some peculiarities when working with external corners. It’s easy to do, following certain rules:

• parts of the frieze should protrude slightly from the edge of the wall, forming a small margin;
• we measure the bar by attaching it to the ceiling as it will be glued in the future;
• we place the frieze in the miter box, pressing it against the wall closest to you;
• insert a hacksaw or other suitable cutting tool into a groove with an angle of 45 °, and cut off the workpiece without unnecessary pressure;

The location of the left outer strap in the miter box

• we put the adjacent bar to the nearest wall of the miter box and, holding it, insert a hacksaw or other tool into the groove at an angle of 45 °. For the convenience of work, we unfold the miter box with the workpiece “under the arm”;
• we do the same as in the previous case. carefully and evenly cut the fillet.

Position of the right outer plank in the miter box with rotation for easy cutting Cutting the left outer plank Cutting the right outer plank

It remains to join the cut baguette strips and check the cutting accuracy. Taking the cut pieces of the baguette in pairs, we join them, forming an inner or outer corner. If the cutting of the planks was carried out accurately and accurately, then the edges of the adjacent planks will ideally coincide with each other.

Fitting the skirting board for the inner corner Fitting the skirting board for the outer corner

In the presence of small irregularities and roughness, it is allowed to work on them with a sharp knife, clean them with a file or emery paper fixed on a bar.

Precise baguette fit

The layout shows how a properly cut and mounted fillet will look in finished form on the inner and outer corners.

Inner skirting board on layout Outer skirting board on layout

Following all the rules and principles of working with special tools when preparing fillets, you can easily independently install any ceiling skirting boards.

How to cut a plastic skirting board

If the angle in the room where it is planned to finish the joints of the walls and the floor with a plinth is 90 degrees, which happens extremely rarely, then the cuts of the plinths should have an angle of 45 degrees each. Such a cut is the easiest to make, especially with a miter box. It is enough to insert the plinth into the miter box, then select a groove at 45 degrees and make a cut.

However, such angles of 90 degrees in rooms are extremely rare, usually they differ by several values ​​in one direction or another. And in some rooms, the corners may even be larger. Then the cutting is done differently: a marking is drawn on the floor with a pencil, where the border of the location of the plinth is drawn on one and the other side of the corner. you get a small rhombus. The diagonal of this rhombus will be the very cutting line of the product. Next, a plinth is applied to the marking, on which the marking is performed in accordance with the diagonal of the rhombus. If you draw a straight line from this mark to the corner of the plinth, then you get the very necessary cutting line.

Cutting the corner on the skirting board

Advice! When trimming the skirting board, it is recommended to saw off a little less than necessary. In case of an error, this will correct the situation by slightly processing the edges of the product by hand and adjust the skirting board to the desired size.

The outer corners of the skirting boards are formed a little differently, or rather, in a room with ideal geometry, you can also cut products at an angle of 45 degrees (but in a different direction) and, after joining, close the edges with a plug. Non-standard corners are cut like this: one of the skirting boards is applied to one of the walls, its borders are marked with a pencil. The same procedure is carried out with another product. again a rhombus flaunts on the floor, the diagonal of which will become a guide for cutting products.

Decoration of the outer corner of the plastic skirting board

Subtleties of choice

There are a few technical points to consider when buying a joinery. First of all, you need to pay attention to the magnitude of the angles that this device is capable of forming. Classic devices operate in a fairly narrow range and are equipped with slots corresponding to angles of 45, 90 and, less often, 60 degrees. Such a device is well suited for cutting skirting boards, strips, platbands or bars, the installation of which will be carried out on surfaces with traditional geometric shapes. If the miter box is purchased for professional activities or for finishing non-standard premises, then it is better to opt for a rotary or electric model, the range of forming angles in which reaches 135 degrees.

The second selection criterion is the material of manufacture of the tool. So, the purchase of metal models is technically justified only for professional activities, in other cases it is better not to overpay and purchase a simple plastic or wooden miter box. When buying rotary models, it is recommended to pay attention to the density of the hacksaw blade. It should not be too elastic and free to bend. The requirement for the rigidity of the metal is due to the fact that when soft blades act on the material, the edges of the cuts are uneven and begin to crumble during the cutting process.

Another important point when buying a miter box is the choice of the manufacturer. So, purchasing a manual model, you can pay attention to such brands as “Zubr”, Topex and Fit, and when choosing an electric one. on “Interskol” and Einhell. These models have shown themselves well in work and are more often than others recommended by professionals.

For how to join the skirting boards, see the next video.

The main types of floor skirting boards

The wooden skirting board is a classic. It is a natural product, as it is made from solid wood. This type is distinguished by its high strength and durability. the skirting boards, installed back in the times of the USSR, still serve faithfully in some apartments and houses. Now they are made mainly of pine wood, but there are also products from walnut, oak, ash and other species. However, due to this, the cost of products increases. not everyone can afford such skirting boards.

Wooden floor plinth

Because of this, veneered skirting boards have appeared on the market. their are an order of magnitude lower. However, outwardly, they practically do not differ from products made of expensive wood. The fact is that their upper part, which plays a decorative role, is just made of a thin layer of expensive wood. Without certain knowledge and experience, it is almost impossible to distinguish veneered plinth from ordinary wooden skirting.

On a note! For cutting skirting boards. wood and veneer. use a regular wood saw.

It is convenient to cut wooden skirting boards with a hacksaw for metal

Plastic skirting boards, that is, made of PVC, are especially popular now. It partially displaced conventional wooden products from the market, as it has a number of advantages:

• looks beautiful and neat. able to imitate natural wood products;
• easy to install, flexible and very easy to cut;
• can serve as a cable channel for laying wires;
• not afraid of exposure to water, and also does not rot, mold does not start on it;
• is inexpensive compared to wood or veneered products.

Plastic skirting board is made of polyvinyl chloride, which is passed through special forms under high pressure. After the mass has solidified, a neat plastic product is obtained.

On a note! Some manufacturers decorate the edges of plastic skirting boards with rubber. This measure helps the product not to slip on walls and floors during installation and to adhere tightly to surfaces.

Trim & Molding : How to Cut Cornice Molding

Plastic skirting board

Plastic skirting boards are of several types. for example, used for carpet (they have a special shape in the form of the letter G, fix the material) or for linoleum. There are also universal products that can be installed on any type of flooring. They can be classified and depending on the hardness.

Table. Types of plastic skirting boards depending on hardness.

Flexible plastic skirting boards