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Make Your Own Cove Molding

Safely "shape" wide concave cuts using your tablesaw and these techniques.

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Creating Your Own Molding

Customize a project by replacing the
store-bought crown molding with
shop-made cove molding.

Creating Your Own Molding

Off-the-shelf cove molding from the home center is convenient, but it limits your choices in widths, profiles, and wood species. For custom molding that perfectly matches your project, create your own. Best of all, you don't need fancy machines--just your tablesaw.

The photo at right shows the secret to doing this: Feeding stock at an angle across the blade cuts a concave profile. Using this procedure, we created a cove molding as an optional trim for the Entry-hall Bench in the second photo. With some experimentation, you can create a wide variety of cove profiles [Cove creativity, last slide] for your projects or maybe to trim a room.

Continued on page 2: Blade Selection

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Comments (2)

Very Part-timer wrote:

Wood, thanks for the tips. IIatl, the 3/4 inch spacer is used if it's your plan to place the cove cut down the middle of your object board. The spacers will vary as your desired cut gets closer to one (or the other) edge of the object board. I've used only one guard rail when I've wanted the cove to resemble the cut made by a router for raised panels. But that isn't necessarily the safest method to use. Two rails are safer than one.

8/12/2010 10:56:17 AM Report Abuse

llatl wrote:

I'm a newbie, so will someone explain the purpose of the spacer? Is it to offset the beginning of the cove so it won't begin right at the edge of the board? Why is a 3/4" spacer suggested?

8/12/2010 10:29:09 AM Report Abuse