Coping moldings (the easy way)

[Cherryville Chuck]

Coped moldings look better than mitered corners do on them and if you are using real wood and the wood shrinks the mitered corner opens up and the gap looks like crap. A coped corner doesn't do that. Coped corners are more work but they aren't hard to do if you can master a coping saw. All you have to do is cut a 45* miter on the end and then follow the edge of the miter where it meets the face of the molding and they will fit perfectly together. One photo shows the profiled part of a base molding cut and the second shows the finished cut mated to another piece of molding.