Fitting Skirting Board into Bay Window

PatR_3

Has anyone got any esay tips for fitting skirting board into a bay window.

Pink.

Welcome to MSE PatR

I'm going to move your thread over to In My Home, where you may get more help.

Pink

kbaud2002

I had this same query when renovating my own house some 2-3 years ago. Presuming its a curved bay and depending on how steep the curve is I think the method involves making lots of saw cuts into the sk/board top to bottom on the face side you see in the room. The amount of cuts you make ie how close they are together depends on how steep the curvature of the board needs to be. I don't actuallty know the bona fide depth the cuts need to be through the wood - I guess too deep or too shallow and you increase the risk of snapping. Once all cuts are made and I think there have to be many quite close the board ideally needs to left suspended between two trestles and soaked with hot water to increase its maliability.

Because the cuts show - ie room side and I was varnishing all mine 7" ones I elected to spuce up the existing one by painting it and filling it to hide any existing cuts and then use a good paint and grain product and then carefully match the colour to all the others

grumbler

The best way is to use Mitre Saw - something like this:

http://www.screwfix.com/app/sfd/cat/pro.jsp?ts=47448&id=19927

italiastar

Presuming its a curved bay and depending on how steep the curve is I think the method involves making lots of saw cuts into the sk/board top to bottom on the face side you see in the room

Are you sure you mean the FACE side - surely it should be the BACK side - ie the one against the wall - not seen. I may be wrong and stand to be corrected.

loracan1

You could try here. What about a window seat?

kbaud2002

I am fairly sure (but I'm not a joiner so I'm not 100%) it is actually the face side - thats what I was told when I enquired. I have also seen others since with the cuts on the face side although they were painted and pretty difficult to tell they were actually there.

I have to admit it does sound 'wrong' to have them showing but I suppose the wood has to be sort of shorter on the face side and bend in on itself so the cuts allow this.

italiastar

Found on the web -

http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/cgi-bin/discussing/forum2.pl?noframes;read=28310

It's difficult to answer your question specifically without knowing how tight a curve you need to create. However, here goes...
f you're not too fussy about the having a specific moulding on top of your skirting, you could try ordering a number of very thin boards to be machined for you, and then fit these one by one on top of each other. The timber supplier might be able to suggest how he can mould one edge of each layer so that they build up into an interesting moulding shape.
However, if you need to use a conventional thickness of skirting, the following is a technique for creating curved boards. But you need to be aware of a few warnings first! (1) It's highly labour intensive. If you haven't got an electric circular saw, or better still a pull-over crosscut saw, you're going to end up never wanting to saw another piece of wood again as long as you live! (2) It can all go horribly wrong if you try to curve the wood just a bit too much. Trouble is, there's no way of knowing how any individual piece of wood is going to behave until you try it! So you might do a lot of hard work, only to end up with a snapped board. Don't say I didn't warn you!
Having said all that - here's what you do. Take your length of skirting board and lay it down with the back facing upwards. Now make a series of cuts across the grain of the wood, cutting about half to two-thirds of the way through the wood. I can't give you any firm guidance on how deep to cut because this depends on how tight a curve you need to achieve - all you can do is try it until it works. If it doesn't. then deepen your cuts a bit, and so on.
Keep on making these cuts about 20 - 25mm apart right along the whole length of the wood. (Yes, I know, that means dozens and dozens of cuts! But without sophisticated steam bending equipment, or making a former for a glue-lam component, I don't know of any other technique for doing what you want to do!)
Once you have made all these cuts, start to carefully bend the piece of wood, little by little. The cuts will open up and allow the wood to bend into a curve - but do it GENTLY and carefully. If you feel that the wood won't take the amount of bend you want, you'll have to deepen the cuts further.
Finally, if you've achieved the curve you need, screw the board to the wall with lots of screws. The start the tedious business of filling all the visible tops of the cuts that you've made.
And, if the wood snaps during the bending process, just start all over again!
Do let us know how you solve this problem.
Good luck - you'll need it!
David
PS: If you decide to try the "technique of a thousand cuts", try talking nicely to your timber supplier and see if he'll make the cuts for you with a pullover crosscut saw. He'll charge you, but it will be worth it.

kbaud2002

Yeah I just read that too italiastar - the link from lorocan1's post. And indeed that you quote does say the back - but other posts to that same question hint at the cuts being to the front.

I think the best method described on there is the one where the posters' joiner bent and tightly wedged the board between the patio and bench and left for 4 days through rain etc and it stayed pretty much the same shape when removed and was ready for fitting with a little bit of persuasion from his boot.

italiastar

the link from lorocan1's post

oops sorry - I didn't notice that the link had already been posted. I like the idea of "soaking" it into shape too - I think the morale is make up your own mind, give it a go and tell us how to do it.

albalad

You can buy either flexi - ply of flexi -mdf , which is already rebated on the bcak side to allow curving to almost any radius.

Or alternatively you can bend your own timber/plywood , i have just recently done this to create a bullnose for a bottom step.
will have a look to see if i can find an example online,

Edit ; just found this link , to give you an idea of how flexible flexi ply really is.
http://www.marineply.com/stagflex.htm