Make Your Own Custom Molding

Most of my articles include step-by-step instructions for readers who like what I’ve made and want to make something similar. This article is a little different. I’ll get into some instructions, particularly for procedures I think went really well, but for the most part this article will focus on the big idea of making your own custom molding. If you decide to make your own molding, you’ll figure out the processes and sequences easily enough. The goal of this article is to help make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into.

There’s nothing like the look of well-crafted custom molding. It’s the cummerbund and spats of trim carpentry. Great molding never shouts out for attention. Like a plain girl who transforms into a stunner by letting loose her hair and removing her glasses, great molding is happy to wait to be noticed. And when you do… bow-chicka-chicka-bow-bow!

My house is typical of many median-priced homes of the mid-80’s in my area. Whomever built our house installed above-average trim. The package included fairly substantial solid wood base with base cap, liberal use of heavy chair rail, and decent crown throughout. The custom solid oak kitchen cabinets they installed were okay, but are now in a landfill. All lower-level interior doors are solid wood 6 panel jobbies. The finish crew stained and varnished everything. The trim carpenters were capable and the bits of trim we haven’t replaced still look pretty good after 30 years.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that the whole lower level was trimmed in fir. The varnish work is crude. The stain color is 80’s-orange and splotchy. There is no evidence of any finish prep other than filling nail holes. Mill marks are apparent throughout. The interior doors are solid wood, but the panels are glued up from material with no attention to color or grain pattern. In short, it’s a builder job designed to appeal to people who don’t know or don’t care what wood can do in the hands of someone who knows how to use it.

The opening line to so many woodworking stories.

If you’re a regular reader (thank you!), you may have deduced that I chomped down on a total kitchen redesign in 2015. I did the design work myself with some help from Her Majesty, I made the cabinets, and I did the lion’s share of the work myself (excluding framing, plumbing and HVAC). It was this kitchen project that set me on the journey of making my own molding. I simply couldn’t buy what I needed to create the impact I wanted, which is the opening line to so many woodworking stories.

My design aesthetic is Arts and Crafts. Whatever your architectural or design aesthetic may call for, I recommend a path similar to mine. I feel like the time and effort I put into learning the basic design elements of my aesthetic and how best to integrate them into my project paid off big time.

It’s tough to pull off Arts and Crafts with speed base. The essence of A&C is to show your work, and to show that your work is good. To get that look, I approached my molding like I approach a furniture project. I tried to think of the project as furnishing the walls, and as with that plain girl in the glasses, I knew the work had to be stunning when you noticed it.

I started by pouring over Google Images for A&C Molding. It didn’t take long for themes to emerge. Traditional characteristics include stained hardwood (usually oak), 3-piece headers (a board with a crown above and a bead below), plinth blocks, corner blocks, corbels, and presence. By presence, I mean the molding makes a statement. Most is quite large, but not Georgian-large. It’s interesting but never busy. Its presence is understated- the strong silent type.

Materials selection and acquisition is a big consideration. I am shocked every time I calculate the material needed for a trim project. Attribute that to my cognitive limitations if you want, but be prepared. Trimming a room takes a massive amount of wood. Many of the pieces will be big and unwieldy. Storage can be difficult. The cost can run away from you like Usain Bolt.

I tried to balance materials considerations in the best possible way for my situation. I have the tools to mill lumber, so I saw no need to pay for S4S. I saved money on board feet, but spent it in time and food- it takes a lot of calories to mill a big stack of oak. Storage limitations prevented me from laying in all the materials I needed at one time. That meant buying multiple small loads, which nixed the efficiency of having it delivered, which resulted in multiple trips to my preferred sawyer who is more than an hour away. Together with the time it takes to sort through stacks of boards, it takes me half a day to buy even a small load of lumber. That’s a big commitment and a massive distraction if you have a day job.

You will have to abandon several boards as sociopathic sons of bitches.

Wood being wood, getting long straight stock for things like door casing requires a lot of time and waste. The wood needs to acclimate. Expect curving, cupping, twisting, and all that other stuff that makes wood act like a slow-motion Latin dance champion. The only way I know to combat this is to start with a lot more material than you need in the end. I buy 5/4 rough stock to get a 3/4 board that is straight and stable, and I work the rosary hard in the process. It may sound like a lot, but 1/2″ of waste is quite a small margin over a distance of several feet. There will be failures and betrayals. Plan on making lots of small projects for years to come from whatever material you use to make molding. Every milling operation needs to be followed by a period of acclimation. My long pieces of red oak (~7’) took a couple months to mill. Read that sentence again before you embark on a project like this.

All the standard rules for milling apply. Flatten a face, square a straight edge to the flat face, plane the other face flat and parallel, then rip to width. Try to take equal amounts of wood off all surfaces and sneak up on straightness and flatness. For long boards, creep up on your final size over a period of several weeks, allowing the boards to rest between milling operations. You’ll need lots of extra material to mill off curves, cups and twists that appear between milling sessions. You will have to abandon several boards as sociopathic sons of bitches. Your goal is to end up with a board that is relaxed, straight, flat and stable in your environment.

You could buy S4S material from a variety of sellers, including big box stores. That will require a tremendous investment of time sorting through boards because you have no margin for wood movement. Also, a board that was straight at the store can change so fast when you get it home you’ll swear somebody pulled a switch-a-roo at the checkout counter. Then there is the cost… O holy night, the cost. In my world, S4S is for small projects and trust-funders. Mere mortals who work for a living cannot succumb to that siren’s song.

With my design work done and materials procured and milled, it was time to make some molding. Here are a few tips from my school of hard knocks for assembling trim work.

If you rely on metal fasteners injudiciously, you may regret it. Tacking together built-up molding is undeniably fast and efficient- which is why pro trim carpenters use nail guns- but it can be costly on the back end. I’ve learned there is no apparent end to the need for a little taper here, a little hollow there, to get everything to come together in a house that left the concept of “square” on the front lawn. Adjustments are quick and easy with a hand plane or a pass over the jointer so long as your work isn’t full of nails. Just sayin’.

I glued up 3-piece head casing without fasteners so that I could drill and plane with impunity. I also like having no holes to fill- not even the nearly-invisible blemishes left by a pin nailer. To reiterate- the ethos of A&C is to show off good work. Details matter, and the absence of fasteners makes a strong impression.

I have only two hands and I always work alone.

My side casing is fixed to plinth blocks at the bottom, and to the head casing at the top, using pegs and pocket screws. The pegs keep the components aligned and the screws keep them tight together. I hardened the screw pockets with CY glue. The joint can be disassembled and reassembled for transport from shop to site. This was one of the most valuable ideas I came up with on this project. I have only two hands and I always work alone. I cannot move a complete door casing through doorways, up staircases, and so on without damaging something. This simple, repeatable joint allows me to make the millwork in the shop, take it apart, put it together at the worksite, take measurements and make marks, take it apart and back out to the shop, as many times as necessary to get everything ready for installation. It takes a few minutes to make the joint, but the investment comes back with an exponent.

Another thing I’m glad I did was to install my trim with adhesives instead of metal fasteners. This takes a little courage, because one great advantage of nailing up trim is that it can be removed with minimal damage. I prefer to use adhesives to eliminate nail holes, but I know that whomever is tasked with replacing this trim in the future (including, possibly, future me) will cuss with vigor. That being said, most of the trim I have removed in my lifetime was caulked to the wall, which acts like an adhesive, often tearing drywall paper upon removal. Same problem, still with nail holes.

I use a couple different adhesives depending on the installation. Construction adhesive like Liquid Nails works great. I use it sparingly, just in case a piece needs to be pulled off. Another adhesive I like is VHB tape. I ran a few tests. VHB tape will tear the paper off drywall before the bond fails. That’s plenty strong for trim work, and taping up molding is fast, easy and clean.

You may be picking up on a theme here- that I don’t like metal fasteners showing on my work. If so, you’re right. Here are a couple other tricks I figured out to install trim without nails.

I assembled several runs of trim as units, fitted to the location where they would be installed, but unattached. This allows me to do finish work in the shop, and when it comes time to install, I can use fasteners that will be hidden behind base shoe, or I can use adhesives, or whatever. I have fairly long, complex runs of base molding that can be removed for shop work.

Another big bonus of this approach is that everything can be pre-finished in the shop. Whether varnishing or spraying lacquer, there is simply no way to achieve a finish on installed woodwork that will equal what you can do in the shop.

I have a number of openings that required jambs and casing. I assembled one side of the casing to the jamb using glue and biscuits. Then I fitted the assembly into the rough opening and shimmed it using glue and clamps, avoiding driving nails through the jamb. I taped the assembly to the wall with VHB tape. Using clamps, glue and biscuits, plus some more VHB tape, I attached the other side of the casing to the jamb and the wall and glued it to the jamb with clamps. The result is a cased opening with no evidence of fasteners. It’s a nice look.

It is a poignant illustration of what it means to be anal-retentive.

I have a number of doors that took special attention. In order for the doors to hang neutral and plumb, the jambs ended up out-of-flush with the adjacent walls. Applying trim to these door jambs would leave noticeable, unacceptable gaps between the molding and the drywall. This would typically be addressed with a caulking gun, but my experience with caulk is that no matter how good you are, that caulk line is going to crack from seasonal changes and the passage of time. To my eye, fractured and torn caulk looks worse than a shadow line. I made tapers and shims to fill the gaps and glued them onto the back of my molding, mating them to the profiles and grain directions of my case stock, resulting in nearly-invisible marriages of trim to walls and jambs. Yes, this took forever. Yes, it is a poignant illustration of what it means to be anal-retentive. No, I’m not sorry I did it. It looks friggin’ awesome. Besides, some of this millwork is stained. How do you caulk that? If you just answered, “they make brown caulk”, you’re reading the wrong blog.

My story is another in the age-old genre of cautionary tales of woodworkers engaging in carpentry. As so many before me have cried out, “There was no other way! It would have cost a fortune to hire this kind of work done, assuming there is even anyone who could have managed it! I had no choice!” Truth be told, it has been overwhelming. It has burned me out. I can’t say I regret taking on the kitchen and all the spinoff projects it produced, including this molding odyssey, but I will readily admit that it was (and continues to be) too much for one guy. I still have a lot of trim work to do, and it is going slowly. It’s slow in part because all the joy has gone out of it, but that’s material for a different blog.