Puttin' Up Some Crown Moulding

[cabinetman]

I just finished the last ceiling with new tiles and will be installing the crown moulding. I've already installed about 800 sq ft of tiles, and this is the last ceiling that gets crown. Altogether there will be about 200 lf of moulding.

The first picture shows an angled wood backer I had to cut because many of the interior walls are CBS. I used an ordinary stud type interior 2x4 and got four lengths of the backer (32') from each one. I ripped them on the TS, and if you do opposite corners first, you can flip what's left and get two more, and what will be left (use a spacer under the 2x4 so the edge doesn't get caught under the fence) of the 2x4 will look like a parallelogram.

I used a HF Support Bar that I got on sale for $9.99. It worked great in holding stuff up. The longest single run was 15'. Sure beats using dead men.
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This next picture is what the crown looks like installed. It is the small wood crown from HD (2 ¾" O/A, and 1 ½" spring).
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[Rand]

Nice work!

[Tom Slick]

It looks really nice.
coped or mitered?

[cabinetman]

It looks really nice.
coped or mitered?

Thanks for the compliments and reminding me that I didn't tell all. The inside corners were coped. I've got several coping saws but my favorite is an old one that I got at (guess where?) you're right...at a garage sale in the early 70's for a dollar or so. The outside corners were mitered. The crown is a pine/spruce FJ'd wood that comes primed white.

I really have to rave about the support bar. I kinda poo pooed the thought, but for about ten bucks I thought I'd give it try. Both top and bottom plates are gimbaled on a ball and have rubber faces. The top plate has that hand pump adjustability so you can get just enough pressure to hold it up and still have some side to side movement if you want. When you're in position, a slight squeeze will fix the wood tight.
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[atgcpaul]

That looks very nice.

I'm about to do some crown for the first time. Not looking forward to those
corners. I'm going to HF right now to get that bar!

[wan2fly]

Those Bars!

I recently did crown too, but I bought those extension bars at Woodcraft not knowing HF sold them. I could have doubled at the least the number of bars I bought if I had gone to HF first.

I must say, they were the handiest things I could imagine for installing crown.
I think they were even better than having a person helping me.

[jhart]

Got 4 of those hf extension bars when they first came out. Had to wait a while until they came back in stock, but use them all the time.
C-man, the crown molding looks great. Good tip on cutting down the 2 x 4's. Will have to try that on a future job.

[JimD]

Crown looks good. Do you cut "upside down and backwards" like I do or flat at a compound angle?

Thanks for the tip on the support bars. I'll have to look next time I am in HF.

Jim

[cabinetman]

Crown looks good. Do you cut "upside down and backwards" like I do or flat at a compound angle?

Thanks for the tip on the support bars. I'll have to look next time I am in HF.

Jim

I've done it that way and find it requires too many changes to the saw. Basically what I do is cut a wedge length that is double sided taped to the fence as a support for the crown to stand up face out at the angle it sits and just cut 45's for left and right cuts. For me it's much faster and more accurate. Or, a stop can be used on the table of the saw, and the cuts be done like the diagram below:
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[docrowan]

Beautiful work! Thanks for the installation tips, too.