One of the things I like about working on a historic home is the challenge of matching new work to old. Last summer, I was hired to do the finish work for a kitchen remodel in a 19th century Victorian home in Winona, Minn. The kitchen had been previously remodeled sometime in the 1960s in a contemporary style incompatible with the home’s period look. We replaced the door trim, matching the style of the original casing elsewhere in the home. The casing was a built-up treatment using several custom molding profiles. There were only five doors to trim — a small run to outsource to a millshop — so I decided to keep the milling in-house. Because the work was paint-grade, I used yellow poplar, a wood that mills well and takes paint nicely.

Stepped casing. The main body of the casing has a triple-stepped profile with a quarter-round bead along the inside edge. I ripped 1-by lumber to a finished width of 4 3/4 inches and then cut the bead on my router table. I made the steps in three successive passes on my table saw. Feeding the stock on edge, I started with the tallest cut, raised the blade to 2 1/8 inches, and shaved 1/8 inch off the face. The subsequent steps are each 3/4 inch narrower than the previous one, produced by lowering the blade and moving the fence 1/8 inch closer to it. I eased the corners on the steps with light hand-sanding. To eliminate major sanding, I used Freud’s glue-line rip blade (freudtools.com), a 30-tooth triple-chip blade that produces really smooth, swirl-free cuts.

To provide full support behind the stock, I attached a tall auxiliary face to the table saw’s fence. Feather boards hold the stock firmly against the fence and are indispensable to smooth, even cutting. I mounted the outfeed feather board on a sled board clamped to the saw table. The sled elevates the feather board higher on the face of the stock, helping to prevent it from tipping away from the fence.

I used a dado head in the table saw to relieve the back of the casing. It took four passes, flipping the stock end-for-end and repositioning the fence once.

All told, it took me 10 hours to produce 126 linear feet of the stepped casing, a labor cost of $600. I paid $150 for the lumber, which brought the total cost to $750, or $5.95 per linear foot. While this seems pretty reasonable, a bigger run would quickly justify outsourcing the work to a millshop.

Jack miters. The carpenter who installed the original casing used a jack miter, a combination of a butt joint and a miter, to join the stepped casing stock. A common miter joint across a 5-inch-wide board would be about 7 inches long. But with seasonal changes and Minnesota’s dry winter air, long miters can open up; a jack miter helps to counter this tendency.

When hand saws were the only option, jack miters were rather easy to make. A power miter saw actually adds a step, since you still have to use a hand saw to finish the inside shoulder cut. To simplify things, I built a jig that made short work of the miter cut.

The jig holds the casing on edge with only the profiled, mitered portion exposed.

I used a Jorgensen “mini-precision” miter saw mounted on a 45-degree angle block. The saw is small and inexpensive (about $20) and has a short stroke. It’s not a pro-grade tool, but its small size worked well for this jig. I cut all the left-hand miters at once, then reset the miter saw on the opposite angle to make all the right-hand cuts.

Because my job-site “shop” was outdoors and subject to rain days, I took careful measurements at each door and precut most of the stock at my shop. Each doorway called for 15 pieces of trim and 24 separate cuts.

I assembled the jack miters on site. To help restrict movement, I used Titebond’s Molding and Trim glue (titebond.com) along with pocket-hole screws to hold the joints together. The glue is self-filling and works particularly well on porous end grain; it also sets quickly and sands easily.

A flat, nominal 1x2 cap with a coved edge detail finishes off the crown.
A flat, nominal 1x2 cap with a coved edge detail finishes off the crown.

Backband. I produced the profile for the two-piece backband on the router table, first hogging off the waste wood on the table saw. The backband turns vertically across the head casing for a slightly wider reveal.

I nailed the casing to the jambs with 1 1/4-inch 18-gauge finish nails and the outer edges to the wall with 2-inch 16-gauge nails. The backband is glued and nailed with the 18-gauge nails. The crown return miters are nailed with a 23-gauge micropinner.

The 2 1/4-inch crown molding on the head casing was the only stock molding I used in the assembly. A flat, nominal 1x2 cap with a coved edge detail finishes off the crown.