Cutting skirting boards

longwalks1

Im fitting some Torus MDF skirting boards this weekend, and never done it before. Will the profiles match up properly if I'm using a mitre/circular saw set a 45 degrees?

Then fill any small discrepancies with caulk/filler before painting?

Any pointers or tips greatly appreciated?

marc81

Should be fine as long as your walls are reasonably straight. I'd also mitre cut any joins along the walls if your walls are longer than one board, they look a lot neater and less noticeable than board ends butted up against each other.

Billy_Bullocks

Mitres for external corners, scribes of internal ones.

martinsurrey

Billy_Bullocks wrote: »

Mitres for external corners, scribes of internal ones.

for a DIY person asking on a forum, scribe joints are asking for trouble (its Torus, so not straight cuts).

A good, easy, internal miter is a LOT better than a dogs ear scribe.

Billy_Bullocks

martinsurrey wrote: »

for a DIY person asking on a forum, scribe joints are asking for trouble (its Torus, so not straight cuts).

A good, easy, internal miter is a LOT better than a dogs ear scribe.

The chances of getting a tidy mitre with mdf skirting are slim too.

Where do you suggest he has the gaps if the walls are out?

27cool

I find the assumption that the corners of the rooms are accurate right angles quite amusing. Based on my experience of building myself 2 houses.

martinsurrey

Billy_Bullocks wrote: »

The chances of getting a tidy mitre with mdf skirting are slim too.

OP has a miter saw, takes the guess work out of the angles, and doesn't rely on hand tools, so more likely to get a better finish.

Billy_Bullocks wrote: »

Where do you suggest he has the gaps if the walls are out?

the same place as with a scribe joint, I REALLY doubt the OP has the skills to do anything other than 90degree scribes, badly, and if they can, they can do varied angle mitres.

Scribes are great (I do them), but the skill jump is pretty big, and the time it takes with low skill is huge, for not much gain if you don't get it spot on right.

Gloomendoom

27cool wrote: »

I find the assumption that the corners of the rooms are accurate right angles quite amusing. Based on my experience of building myself 2 houses.

I was thinking the same thing. :rotfl:

All the rooms in my house are trapezoidal in plan.

sjw64

I've just 'skirted' all the rooms in my house recently and not one single corner was set square. Some were ridiculously out. I 'mitred' mine using a chop saw, pushed them into the corner as best the would and filled the gaps with either filler or caulk.

TheCyclingProgrammer

martinsurrey wrote: »

for a DIY person asking on a forum, scribe joints are asking for trouble (its Torus, so not straight cuts).

Its still the right way to do it. If you're going to do a job, do it properly and all that.

Scribing is not that hard and if somebody is confident enough in their DIY skills to fix skirting they should be capable of doing it. If you've got a mitre saw, the only other tool you need is a coping saw with a decent blade.

Cut the mitre, then cut out most of the straight part of the profile using a back cut with the mitre saw for the long edge and the coping saw to cut across and remove that chunk, then carefully back cut along the curved part of the profile with the coping saw. If in doubt, practice on an offcut.

FreeBear

TheCyclingProgrammer wrote: »

Scribing is not that hard and if somebody is confident enough in their DIY skills to fix skirting they should be capable of doing it. If you've got a mitre saw, the only other tool you need is a coping saw with a decent blade.

Agreed, it isn't difficult - I replaced the skirting boards in the lounge and scribed the joints. Used a jigsaw rather than a coping saw and made the final adjustments with a half round rasp. Plenty of online guides & vids on scribing.

As the OP is using MDF, some coarse sandpaper will work just as well as a rasp - I used real wood as it was considerably cheaper than MDF.