I recently tried my hand at cutting and hanging crown molding for the first time. We had a bathroom ceiling that was damaged around the edges for a couple of inches, and the easiest way to fix it seemed to be to cover it up with crown molding.

The first thing I did was watch some videos on You Tube about how to cut it. I also found lots of instructional websites. But as I worked through the project, I found that a lot of these videos and websites have some basic tips missing.

By the way, have you noticed that after the expert cuts the molding on the video, he holds the two pieces together and they look like a perfect corner? Well, anyone can do that. The problem is that when you actually put the molding up on your wall, the two pieces don’t meet the same way as when you just hold them together.

So here are the things I found out the hard way.

Miter Cut vs. Compound Miter Cut

You can cut crown molding two different ways. One way uses a miter saw and another uses a compound miter saw. With the first way, you hold the molding at an angle against the bottom and side of the saw, pretending it is the wall and ceiling where the molding will eventually go. With the second way, you place the wood flat and make a miter cut and bevel cut at the same time.

They all make it sound as if the first method, using just a miter saw, is the easiest. Well, it isn’t. I tried it and I couldn’t get the angles to come out right. I figured out the reason for this: the molding doesn’t have totally flat surfaces. As a test, I held the piece up against the saw and marked where the molding sat on my saw. Then I tried it again and the piece was in a totally different spot.

Both attempts looked as if the molding was sitting flat against the saw, but that’s because the edges of the molding were not totally flat. Also I noticed if I put the top of the molding flat, the bottom wasn’t totally flat, and vice versa. Keep in mind that I was using some of the basic molding that Home Depot had made out of composite plastic; nothing fancy.

So I used my best guess on how to hold the pieces and I made the cuts. But I found that the corners didn’t fit together correctly at all when I held the pieces up to the wall.

The second way to make the cut which uses a compound saw to do both a miter and bevel cut at once, worked a lot better.

The Settings on your Miter Saw

Another lesson learned has to do with the angle settings of the saw. I found a website that lists exactly what these should be, but my resulting pieces still weren’t cut properly.

The best place to look for instructions is in the owner’s manual that came with your saw. I have a Hitachi and the manual had a special section on crown molding that told me exactly what I needed to know. The saw also had locked settings for both the miter cut and the beveled cut for the most common sizes of crown molding.

After using these instructions, I finally got two pieces that fit together correctly.