Ideas for replicating trim?

[Texas_Ranger]

For quite a while I've been thinking about replicating some missing door trim in the house. However, I'm not quite sure how to do that, so I thought I'd ask you.

In fact the trim is rather simple, flat 1x5 stock with a groove pattern. The latter is my problem. It consists of 3 grooves next to each other and the area between the grooves is rounded "in reverse", i.e. convex. The result looks a bit like a sine wave *g*

So far my only idea how to do this is take a never-painted piece of trim, make a rubbing of the profile and then build a custom scraper by filing down an old saw blade (I have an old hand saw that has lost most of its teeth, so that would be perfect).

Any better or easier ideas?

[Gothichome]

Tex, have look at this as an option. You can set up a jig to run down the side of the board.
http://www.holesawsunlimited.com/home.php?cat=332
These are for aluminum and should work just fine on wood. The length on the standard sizes is about 2 1/2 inches but they do make them in longer length although I believe the next step is 6 inches but they are hard to find. You can get a bit extender a lot cheaper and a lot easier.

[Texas_Ranger]

Tex, have look at this as an option. You can set up a jig to run down the side of the board.
http://www.holesawsunlimited.com/home.php?cat=332
These are for aluminum and should work just fine on wood. The length on the standard sizes is about 2 1/2 inches but they do make them in longer length although I believe the next step is 6 inches but they are hard to find. You can get a bit extender a lot cheaper and a lot easier.

Great idea, but I think that'd still leave me with pointy bits between the grooves rather than rounded.

A friend keeps trying to talk me into having his father (toolmaker) make custom knives for our doors and trim, but I'd have to provide exact drawings, and while I know a bit about CAD I don't really have any practice measuring radii and angles in real life. Besides, I don't have much woodworking equipment except for a handheld router, so I wouldn't be able to use the knives anyway. A carpenter or lumberyard would probably charge a high setup fee, so that's not really an option either if you only need trim for one door.

[clover]

You're right that the cost of custom knives would be prohibitive for just one door, but if you do need more trim than that, you might be surprised by how reasonable the cost can be. We got two quotes from two different millworks - one was $85 for the knives, the other was $70 which included the set-up fee, then another .47 cents a linear foot for the actual trim. Our need was for a piece of moulding to top our baseboards, as we are finding it impossible to do certain projects without ruining the existing trim. In our case, we wanted 200 sq ft, and it was well worth the fee for custom to get an exact match.

[phil]

I have a bunch of painted casings like that but I am near vancouver BC probably too far for it to be practical to ship. not sure how old it is.
If you have a piece of casing to use as a pattern , give him that to work from or do it yourself.

if you have a router table and can find a knife to grind, you can grind the profile with a dremil, you only really need one blade.

I once needed a little piece, just 2 inches of a certain profile and just used a blade from a butter knife sharpened the right way, then just used it like a card scraper.

you could probably fashion a blade for a plane, and use a plane like a stanley no 78 shown here :

http://www.google.ca/search?q=stanley+n ... 09&bih=454

it's just trial and error and a little bit of grinding in between, you can use prussian blue ( engineers blue) to see where the high spots are once you get close. put the bluing on the profile then put the blade against it , anywhere it touches the profile, the ink transfers , grind a little off. once you get the whole profile to transfer you are done.

or if you don't want to grind a blade, you can check this page to see if there is a profile the same :
http://www.toolbazaar.co.uk/Spares.asp

scroll down to where it reads" SUPERB STANLEY TYPE CUTTERS FOR THE 66 SHAVE"

here is a stanley 66 spokeshave with the blades. this one might be pricey but you get the idea.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/STANLEY-NO-66-H ... 849wt_1010

[Sooth (WavyGlass)]

Tex:

As a cabinetmaker, who'd copied a lot of mouldings/profiles, I think this is very "doable".

I think you can get "close enough" with just a beading bit. The best type to get would be a pointed one of the right diameter to match your bead. This shape:
http://www.mlcswoodworking.com/orderstatus/html/smarthtml/graphics2/pointro.jpg

If the "deep crack" needs a rounded bottom, you can also get very small round-end bits (similar profile) but they would need to be custom ordered (and harder to find in small sizes + $$$).
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51eIQuXbFkL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

I think you can get "close enough" with just matching the beads. No one would see the difference unless you were looking very closely. As long as the distance between the beads, and the size is nearly identical, it should work out.

[Texas_Ranger]

I once needed a little piece, just 2 inches of a certain profile and just used a blade from a butter knife sharpened the right way, then just used it like a card scraper.

Baiscally that was my idea, only using an old saw blade and maybe even build a wooden box to hold the scraper. The main issue is that I have some pieces of existing trim (just some missing on both sides of the frame) so I'd like to get a perfect match - if I do mitres any mismatch would really show!

I've also considered using a mix of U-groove and roundover bits plus some sanding. We'll see, maybe that's a task for the summer. Right now I'm busy with flooring and then it's on to painting.