Haven't been around much the past month due to a little rain we had on 12
July and 3 feet of water in the shop and about a foot in my walk-in
basement. My office is (was) in the basement and it certainly got trashed.
So far, 3 motors in the shop have been rebuilt and a couple of tons of
"basement stuff" trashed. Note - sealed bearings do not stop water...8-(
At any rate, I'm in the process of rebuilding the office and went looking
for some molding - colonial style. The borg's are outrageous right now on
wood prices. A lot of places in upstate NY had flooding the past month or
so and even finding materials to rebuild with can be difficult and damned
expensive. I'm sure a lot of their stock has been diverted to Katrina
rebuilding efforts and short supply etc. is driving the prices up.
Found some decent pine, colonial chair rail at a seconds place we have that
was stain grade for .69/ft so I grabbed what I needed. Plan on painting it
anyway so the blems don't hurt it for my application. I'm replacing the
lower 30" of sheetrocked wall (that was ruined) with plywood beaded
wainscoting. Need some colonial base and it's in short supply. The stuff
left at the borgs is really beat looking and at $1.39/ft - I'll mill my own.
Was planning on getting some rough-sawn poplar and making the base but I
spied some 1" x 4" x 8' lengths of solid vinyl boards at $6 per board. I
can't get a decent pine board at that price so I thought I would give it a
try - besides it's water-proof for next time....;-)
I'll need to mill this down so the thickness matches the door and window
casings and then route a colonial profile on the edge and should be good to
go. But... I've never worked this stuff before and was wondering if it's
hard on tools, any special precautions or other advice others may have that
have milled this. I expect just standard woodworking practices should work
well but thought I would ask.
Thanks,
Bob S.
BobS wrote:
...
> spied some 1" x 4" x 8' lengths of solid vinyl boards at $6 per board. I
> can't get a decent pine board at that price so I thought I would give it a
> try - besides it's water-proof for next time....;-)
>
> I'll need to mill this down so the thickness matches the door and window
> casings and then route a colonial profile on the edge and should be good to
> go. But... I've never worked this stuff before and was wondering if it's
> hard on tools, any special precautions or other advice others may have that
> have milled this. I expect just standard woodworking practices should work
> well but thought I would ask.
Yes, but...depending on the particular vinyl you found, it may not
leave a good surface when you mill it. Many varieties are only
completely solid on the surface and the interior is porous or
honeycombed that when cut leaves a very rough surface at best.
If it is solid enough to mill, you'll probably find you'll need a good
carbide or the mouldings will soon chew up a HSS bit. What litle I
have used was supposed to be less abrasive than wood and actually
recommended HSS, but my actual experience was that the HSS bits dulled
very quickly and then cause scorch and melt marks.
It saws easily, but most has problems w/ mushrooming or similar around
nailheads. The particular variety I used recommended against a finish
nail, but for interior work I used one anyway to be able to set them
although to get a really neat finish required pilot holes.
All in all, except for exterior house trim perhaps, I wasn't that
thrilled and will probably continue to bite the bullet for real wood
except for special purposes (such as where the water-resistance would
really make a difference). Unfortunately, for a situation as you have
described, by using the beadboard, saving the baseboard in the
(hopefully never) next event will be very little consolation.
Wish my experience were better, you've had more than your share
already...
"dpb" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> BobS wrote:
> ...
>> spied some 1" x 4" x 8' lengths of solid vinyl boards at $6 per board. I
>> can't get a decent pine board at that price so I thought I would give it
>> a
>> try - besides it's water-proof for next time....;-)
>>
>> I'll need to mill this down so the thickness matches the door and window
>> casings and then route a colonial profile on the edge and should be good
>> to
>> go. But... I've never worked this stuff before and was wondering if it's
>> hard on tools, any special precautions or other advice others may have
>> that
>> have milled this. I expect just standard woodworking practices should
>> work
>> well but thought I would ask.
>
> Yes, but...depending on the particular vinyl you found, it may not
> leave a good surface when you mill it. Many varieties are only
> completely solid on the surface and the interior is porous or
> honeycombed that when cut leaves a very rough surface at best.
>
> If it is solid enough to mill, you'll probably find you'll need a good
> carbide or the mouldings will soon chew up a HSS bit. What litle I
> have used was supposed to be less abrasive than wood and actually
> recommended HSS, but my actual experience was that the HSS bits dulled
> very quickly and then cause scorch and melt marks.
>
> It saws easily, but most has problems w/ mushrooming or similar around
> nailheads. The particular variety I used recommended against a finish
> nail, but for interior work I used one anyway to be able to set them
> although to get a really neat finish required pilot holes.
>
> All in all, except for exterior house trim perhaps, I wasn't that
> thrilled and will probably continue to bite the bullet for real wood
> except for special purposes (such as where the water-resistance would
> really make a difference). Unfortunately, for a situation as you have
> described, by using the beadboard, saving the baseboard in the
> (hopefully never) next event will be very little consolation.
>
> Wish my experience were better, you've had more than your share
> already...
dpb,
Thanks for the excellent input and based on your real-world experience -
it's going back in the am and I'll go get the poplar and mill it instead.
Thank you,
Bob S.