A dilemma of skirting boards

[hindy]

Hi all, I was hoping to gauge what the most cost effective approach is for skirting boards.

The wife has picked out a design on a large uk website, but at our 200mm height the 4.2m lengths are £40, UNprimed! Various Google searches of the top suppliers yield similar results. I am gobsmacked. But then again it has been a while since I've bought new skirting boards but I can't remember them even being half of that.

I'm not averse to buying mdf sheets in the right thickness, circular sawing them down to the necessary height and then taking an Ogee router bit over them - I've not done this before but I don't believe it should be beyond the realms of my expertise. This would be cheaper and give me a finished result of something not-unlike what I would be buying.

Does anyone have experience of this?
Am I on the right track?
Is the finish normally acceptable?

Cheers,
Johnathan

 

[Spectric]

Do you own a router table and any cutters, that could be an initial expensive outlay outherwise. Also make sure you are happy with the MDF look for your skirting boards before going that direction, if an older more traditional house then rather than a thick piece of wood with a moulding you can use built up profiles which look chunky but are not.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I went to timber yards in NZ 25 years ago with my BiL, a joiner. They sell skirting base boards and mouldings to be T&Ged together so you can pick the moulding and the height. Besides anything else it makes economic sense - the base doesn't need to be timber of the same quality as that which carries the moulding. That gave me the idea for mine in my old house. I made the base boards out of ply and biscuited architrave to them. Not perfect, but I didn't fancy paying for 10" - 11" skirtings, assuming I could even find them.

 

[MikeK]

I've been binge watching Russ's New Yorkshire Workshop as he renovates his 160-year old Victorian house. In the video below, he uses two sections of moisture resistant MDF to make tall skirting for the rooms. Although he uses a spindle moulder to machine the profile, it is possible to make something similar with a router table and appropriate cutters.



As an unintended consequence, my wife was looking over my shoulder as Russ was putting the final coat of paint on the skirting. She told me that looked much better than the tile version that we have and is common in German houses. I told her it did look good, and I could make something like that, but it would not be as intricate as the skirting in the video because I don't have a spindle moulder. She reminded me of something she heard on a podcast years ago...every new project is an opportunity to buy new tools. Hmmm...

 

[Spectric]

Mike, sounds like you have been de-americanised using the word skirting instead of baseboard !

because I don't have a spindle moulder

So looks like a thread coming about mikes new spindle moulder, any ideas on make yet ? If you don't go that route then watch



and look at the victorian made profile here Baseboard Molding Design Ideas and Diagrams - Do-it-yourself-help.com

 

[johnnyb]

I don't think your making sense. shopping around for cheaper skirting yes. making it from mdf no. your probably buying primed mdf skirting? this is a great ( if a bit samey) product and in normal houses is much better than wood( older houses need more attention) it comes in 4.2m length

 

[MikeK]

Mike, sounds like you have been de-americanised using the word skirting instead of baseboard !

You might have noticed that I also used "spindle moulder" instead of "shaper". This is purely as a courtesy and should not be mistaken as assimilation.

So looks like a thread coming about mikes new spindle moulder, any ideas on make yet ?

My choices are limited in what will fit down the stairs and not occupy too much room in the shop when not being used. For now, I'm looking at an Elektra Beckum TF 904. There's a guy about two hours north of me who has a business rebuilding the full line of EB machines, similar to the way @Sideways and @deema rebuild machines.

He starts with a complete tear down and replacement of all wear items, such as bushings, bearings, pulleys, and belts. The motor is rewound with new brushes and bearings installed and all of the cabinet wiring is replaced. The bi-directional machine with extensions, sliding table, power feeder, and a starter set of cutter blocks and cutters is about €1,900 delivered. I have to wait for him to sequence my order into his schedule, but I'm not in a hurry for it.

I could have the SCM Minimax TW 45C next week, but it's a beast for my shop. It weighs just over 200KG more than the TF 904 and has a larger footprint.

 

[clogs]

mdf in bought ready made length's have a smooth polished finish on the molded top edge.......ready for paint......
it's a lot of work to clean up and keep repainting the homemade finish on the top edge of MDF. even if sealed.....
at least if u buy it ready made it'll be fitted and ur off knee's in no time.....
no idea of the cost of sheets of MDF but then ur stuck with more joints....
plus can u handle the weight of it and cut it up accurately....?

 

[deema]

@MikeK Come on, take a leap down the rabbit hole. You know you want, your wife needs you to….. Another convert me thinks to the Spindle moulder

 

[Inspector]

I made all the mouldings including the skirtings/baseboards in my basement from MDF sheet and painted them. Making them myself was half the cost of pre-made. I'm retired so my time is considered worthless, at least when you calculate how much my government pension is per hour. Mine only had a 1/8"/3mm round over, hand head in a trim router but the MDF doesn't care what you use. For a bigger profile I would recommend a router table with a tall fence. Where joints fell in the middle of the wall I cut the baseboards/skirting at a 45º angle over a stud and used glue and brads. Easy enough after to fill and sand any slight mismatch or differences. You'll be doing it for the rest of the brad holes anyway. They won't be seen under the paint. I always start with the longest walls and work my way down to the shortest pieces, that way any cutting goofs can be shortened. The upside to making your own mouldings is you can pick the thicknesses you like, even glueing some together to make what is not readily available.

If I had to make large profiled mouldings I would use machines not normally found in the UK. Planer moulders like the Williams and Hussey or the planer, moulder,gang saw, drum sanders like the RBI, Woodmaster types. I have older versions of both. They make moulding a short run for a house easy.

Mike what about replacing your short stroke sliding table saw with combination version of the same with a tilting head spindle in addition to the saw? My buddy had a Hammer or Felder and he loved the ability to use the sliding table for both and it wasn't much bigger than the saw alone. Might cost more but you can't buy more space in your basement.

Pete

 

[Spectric]

Oh dear, that spindle moulder just won't go away and when watching there capability in making large mouldings in far less passes than a router it does all make sense. My issue is space and so to accomodate would be another big move round.

 

[MikeK]

@MikeK Come on, take a leap down the rabbit hole. You know you want, your wife needs you to….. Another convert me thinks to the Spindle moulder

I always listen to the voices.

Mike what about replacing your short stroke sliding table saw with combination version of the same with a tilting head spindle in addition to the saw? My buddy had a Hammer or Felder and he loved the ability to use the sliding table for both and it wasn't much bigger than the saw alone. Might cost more but you can't buy more space in your basement.

I thought about that and went through the "what ifs" when I bought the SC2C because the store also had the C 30G on display. If the saw leaves my basement, I won't replace it with another saw. Since building out the other half of my shop for the Festool equipment, I rarely use the sliding saw, but don't want to get rid of it yet.

Another problem with replacing the SC2C with a combo machine, such as the C 30G, is the orientation of the work. The infeed and outfeed alignment for the saw, spindle moulder, and P/T are in the same line, and this would limit what I can pass through the other two cutters. The saw blade arbor is nearly exactly in the middle of my five-meter wide shop. This means I can't rip full sheets of plywood and would have more limitations when using the P/T. I can move the Minimax FS 30G near the door to my shop and run five-meter lengths of material through it.

Finally, and this is only my opinion after using the C 30G once, trying to coax three functions out of one machine results in less overall capability than separate machines. Since I already have the saw and P/T, all I would be adding is the spindle moulder. The maximum cutter diameter of the spindle moulder is 160mm, and the used market is saturated with 200mm cutter heads.

 

[Inspector]

I understand your reasoning Mike but I wasn't thinking of a 4 or 5 function combination machine, only one with saw and spindle moulder.

Pete

 

[Spectric]

Finally, and this is only my opinion after using the C 30G once, trying to coax three functions out of one machine results in less overall capability than separate machines.

I feel the same about most things, they seem to either deliver the single function well or deliver multiple functions to varying degree's and being old school I think a phone is a phone and a camera is a camera so therefore combining machine functions just comes across as something has been compromised.

 

[Bingy man]

Try national skirting boards, just done a quick search and a 4.2 mtr x 200mm is half the cost of what you have found -not certain if it includes vat but they offer free delivery.
MDF Skirting Boards - Regency - National Skirting
£7.01
National Skirting
30-day returns
By Google

 

[johnnyb]

howdens is decent price.

 

[James555]

Buy them, install and get on with your life. Unless you want to make them for fun, in which case enjoy. I’ve been there with a renovation and you can get bogged down saving relative pennies here and there.

 

[Pivotal Howard]

Hi all, I was hoping to gauge what the most cost effective approach is for skirting boards.

The wife has picked out a design on a large uk website, but at our 200mm height the 4.2m lengths are £40, UNprimed! Various Google searches of the top suppliers yield similar results. I am gobsmacked. But then again it has been a while since I've bought new skirting boards but I can't remember them even being half of that.

I'm not averse to buying mdf sheets in the right thickness, circular sawing them down to the necessary height and then taking an Ogee router bit over them - I've not done this before but I don't believe it should be beyond the realms of my expertise. This would be cheaper and give me a finished result of something not-unlike what I would be buying.

Does anyone have experience of this?
Am I on the right track?
Is the finish normally acceptable?

Cheers,
Johnathan

Skirtings traditionally are just there to cover the gap between shrinking timbers. For modern dwellings with masonry floors try something different. I like crisp contemporary square set plaster work and this works as an almost flush skirting. The wall was part of a trade show display for pivoting domestic doors without architraves and traditional skirtings.

 

[clogs]

now thats a combo machine....
all I wanted was a decent table saw and she bought me this monster for my birthday.....it's around 2 tons.....
the forklift grunts a bit when I pick it up....lol......
it was out of a proff wood shop here

she has suddenly gone deaf when I asked for a midi digger .......hahaha......
i do have an as new Kity429 spindle thats really nice for the smaller jobs.....

 

[Stuart Moffat]

It’s given me an idea…. Must as SWMBO if she’d like new skirting!!