In our earlier adventures with hammer and saw we went through the motions of constructing framed doors and side-pieces for chests and cabinets and cupboards and put off the question of moldings until now.

The moderne mode, as you will have observed even in the sketches in this book, and more particularly if you've looked at current furniture displays, completely ignores moldings. This, like many things, is a matter of taste. If you think the moderns have the right idea-then no moldings-and you can skip this part of our manual.

The fact remains, however, that some people still like moldings, and that moldings still have their uses.

The usual moldings you will be likely to use are the cove, the ogee, or cyma molding, and perhaps the quarter round.

There is also a molding which is useful for creating a panelled effect, in conjunction with the others. It is one of a large family generally known as strip moldings.

First of all-you won't be able to do anything with moldings without a miter box, and it isn't a bad idea to have a 45 ° triangle on hand, too.

To run a molding around inside a door frame, or side-piece (which is already backed up with masonite or plywood) simply needs an accurate job of sawing 45° angles in your miter box. In such a case as the first sketch on the page opposite you, cut two pieces of molding to the height and width of the panel. These you nail in with little 3/4" finishing nails, countersinking them, filling the sinkages with plastic wood and sandpapering off smooth.

A row of typical stock moldings.

The principal thing to avoid is making a mitered corner that gapes at the joint, that is not a neat, snug fit. And to get such a fit you just have to cut the pieces to accurate lengths. After you have miscut a few pieces with the 45 ° angle running in the wrong direction (and you probably will) you will begin to look very shrewdly at the molding and your marking on it before you slam it into the miter box and start sawing. This easy-to-make mistake is illustrated in a close-up sketch facing-and if you think it isn't easy to miscut your molding as per the line yz instead of the line wx (which is the way you meant to cut it)-just try being careless a few times and see how often you go wrong on this little detail. You can, of course, correct the mistake with very little waste by making the right cut w' x" afterward, but you'll feel annoyed, and perhaps a little silly.

Showing the technique of cutting moldings in a miter box to form paneled effects.

On the theory that measuring is never quite as safe or as sure as fitting, it is well to mark the cuts on your molding by holding it to the spot you mean it to go, and it's a good plan to do this all around the door or panel you are molding. Suppose, for instance, that the inside of the frame, as nailed up, has not come out 100 per cent square and even-sided (if it does you're good), and suppose you arbitrarily cut up your molding into perfectly even lengths on the (probably) unwarranted belief that the frame is absolutely even-sided. The result will be at least one bad miter-and if you're going to have miters at all, one bad one is that many too many.

Showing a paneled effect with strip moldings, and also a molding mitered around a top and a base.

The strip molding is used as shown, and necessitates a careful pencil layout on the panel in order that the pieces be cut true to length and applied with the proper spacing. This sort of a job is no place to go temperamental or sketchy. The pencil layout lines need to be accurate, and the molding needs to be cut and laid accurately on the lines. For a small strip molding you may need finishing nails as small as 1/2" (Judge this according to the thickness of the molding, plus the thickness of the masonite or plywood.)

Molding work, such as here proposed, may be glued in place before nailing, though this is not at all necessary.

Moldings may also be used for caps and bases as here shown-and what a truly cut miter this means. With modernly styled designs you don't have any overhanging tops or projecting bases-which is maybe just as well.

Better not to have this sort of a mitered molding job at all than to do it so that you get a gaping joint on the corner.

A neat technique here is to glue the corner and drive a small finishing nail in the spot "x," very carefully, by the way, as it is no trouble at all to split a small molding at this point. And you are not likely to be pleased if you have to pry the split molding off and cut another one. (You may even ask: "Who said it was fun to build things?") Moreover, let it be here sternly stated in this matter of exposed mitered-corner moldings, that if the miter isn't absolutely truly cut, and the whole piece of molding exactly cut the right length, neither glue nor corner nail, or both together will fix it. It will still be a botched corner, and look like one. You won't be able to deceive yourself or anyone else on this point. And in trying to drive the corner together, probably rather peevishly, the odds are all in favor of your splitting the molding through which you have driven the nail. And there's no way of fixing this little mishap so it won't show.