jenroux, By no means take this the wrong way,but this skirting thing has been flogged to death on these forums.So do as you like. Ias a tradesman would recamend to scribe internal corners. you will also get advise to mitre internals ,this advise will normally come from people with very little carpentry experience and their user names usually start with handy . Like I said in the great scheme of things it is not that important But remeber this TRADESMEN scribe internalmitres bodgers will do as they like because they cannot tellif they are doing a bad job or a good job
If you are 100% confident that your walls and floors are perfectly flat, level, and square to each other with no variation anywhere then go ahead and mitre the internals, otherwise scribe them. Personally,in 40 years of nailing bits of wood together for a living I've never found a situation where mitreing internals produced a better job. Yes, MDF does shrink, but not as much as timber is likely to(depending on the moisture content of the timber).
handy , Wood shrinks across it's width & thickness, usually at the same % rate. This is usually about 5% when the central heating has taken it's toll & the skirting was stored in an open timber store ( which is common), so a 95mm x 15mm piece of skirting would shrink to 90mm x 14.25mm. The resulting shrinkage of 0.75 mm is exaggerated if internal mitres are used because the faces pull apart at 45 degrees from each other & the gap is far bigger. You won't be hung for mitring internal corners, but scribing will show alot smaller gap after shrinkage. After 25 years in the building trade & seeing it done both ways, i can tell you from snagging many refurb jobs that internal mitres show a much larger gap after a few months.
Just to add something which hasen,t been said yet(i think).Every apprentice will have been taught to scribe there must be good reason.Forget shrinkage.Imagine you fit a long length to a wall if you have mitred and the piece is slightly short,easily done if the wall is uneven.The mitre will be short and there is nothing you can do.If you are scribing the scribe joint will cover the gap apart from a tiny bit at the top. In the old days if you messed up a piece of moulded skirting it probably cost more than you earned in a day To say that the old boys couldn,t cut an internal mitre easily without a mitre saw is ridiculous
the easy-ist way is to use a chop saw or a miter block ( 45 degrees ) then get a copeing saw and follow the new cut ( cut out the slanted bit then you have a exacted profile of the skirting, and then it should butt up to exsisting skirting board, if not don't blame me lol.
that is an excellent point yorkshire boy. there is definate wisdom in scribing internals. if there was a better way then rest assured generations of chippies would not still be scribing.
Before anyone accuses me, I do not say either way is right or wrong. BUT, when it comes to being a more professional job, there is little doubt in my mind that a mitred internal joint can be as good as a scribed one, if not better. Here's an example to help substantiate my claim: Cut your first run of skirting with 45º mitres, fix it. Make sure the mitre fits the wall(as in, right to the corner). Take the next run(for the example, not a full run)45º at joint. Offer it up so it fits the previos skirting. Lovely. Now give it a little tap. you can give it a tap to force it in by 1.5mm EASILY(the quoted gap after shrinkage-according to some). So when it shrinks by that amount, it will not show a gap as it will be in the position it would have been when it first fitted lovely. Now, with a scribed joint, part of the skirting will be butted up against the previous and so you could not tap it in tighter. Therefore you can only fit it butted up. Therefore again, when it shrinks(so-called) you will most definitely have a gap. Now that is the theory I believe in. As I said, I don't say either is right or wrong. Mr. HandyAndy - really
Yes yorkshireboy is quit right and I was allways tought to cut all mitres without a block or a mitre saw and I still do all I need for skirting is a saw , coping saw, saw bench, sliding square,tape measure, pencil, and fixings.. oh not forgetting snap and flask..
Mr andy pandy,how come its taken you 13 days to come up with this revelation about tapping bits of skirting,methinks you are winging it.
Mr andy pandy,how come its taken you 13 days to come up with this revelation about tapping bits of skirting,methinks you are winging it. Oh dear, oh dear. Flyingjockstrap, if you care to read ALL the posts, you might just see that i first replied to this post on 13 February <u>2005</u> Please don't jump on the end and make ill-informed comments. You'll get a bad name. Oh, you've already been given one. heyho. Mr. HandyAndy - really
Handy - I'm only a DIYer but I read and followed the advice on here very carefully before I replaced the skirting in my house. I chose to do the 45 degree cut and scribe the internals and it worked beautifully. I really cant imagine any amount of tapping on a mitred internal would have worked out at all especially since I had to use that crappy B&Q torus stuff. I found that using rapid mitre fix on the external mitres works really well as I used it to make the whole section for the chimney breast before fitting it to the wall.
jenroux, By no means take this the wrong way,but ng way,but this skirting thing has been flogged to death on these forums.So do as you like. Ias a tradesman would recamend to scribe scribe internal corners. you will also get advise to mitre internals rnals ,this advise will normally come from people with very little carpentry experience and their user names usually start with handy . Like I said in the great scheme of things it hings it is not that important But remeber this TRADESMEN scribe scribe internalmitres bodgers will do as they like because they cannot not tellif they are doing a bad job or a good job
Now give it a little tap. you can give it a tap to force it in by 1.5mm EASILY(the quoted gap after shrinkage-according to some). That won't stop the gap opening, as the face of the skirting shrinks back towards the wall & the mitre will open up. The quoted shrinkage is fact, ask any tradesaman! Just give it up, internal mitres open up more than scribing it's a fact.