Replies

1. 
   mrossk | May 08, 2020 10:53am | #1

   I've made a curved "Krenov-style " plane with a blade I purchased from Hock Blades. The plans for the planes are available many places- Krenov's books, here on the FWW website, Chris Gochnor, etc. The radii of the available blades is limited though, and if I recall correctly, probably too small for crown moldings. If you could get one custom made, maybe?...

2. 
   _mj_ | May 08, 2020 11:22am | #2

   Any plane you make will only be good for a specific curve. If your moldings vary from piece to piece you'll be spending all your time making planes. I know it's not what you want to hear, but the scraper is the ticket here.

   I worked with a restoration carpenter a looooong time ago and his go-to for cleaning up old moldings was to make a sanding block using auto body filler. He would apply a release agent like cooking spray to the molding and fill it with bondo. When it set up he had a form-fitting sanding block.

3. 
   john_c2 | May 08, 2020 11:55am | #3

   Scraping and sanding are tge go-tos. If you make the same exact moldings all the time, you can make a plane, or have one custom made. Matt Bickford has a website with many stock shapes, or he will custom make them. The book "Making and Mastering Wood Planes" by David Finck describes making a round bottom plane. Getting an even troat on a round bottom is tricky. Lost Art Press sells the book.

   Keep in mind that stock selection is critical for planing moldings. If the grain is in the wrong direction, or reverses, you'll still end up scraping or sanding a lot.

4. 
   drdan | May 09, 2020 10:55am | #4

   Thank you much for the advice. I will try the "auto-body" approach while I try my hand at making planes. Thanks for pointing me at both Bickford and Finck's books - they look very helpful. In the process of searching those out, I ran across an old FWW article on the subject.

5. 
   suburbanguy | May 09, 2020 05:36pm | #5

   Dear Dr: Cooking spray sounds a little messy. Poly Vinyl Alcohol (PVA), used as a fiberglass mould release agent is the ingredient in hair spray and thus readily available for small jobs (I've personally used it for such). A good wax such as Carnauba is used in other applications. Give one of these a try.

6. 
   mrossk | May 09, 2020 10:14pm | #6

   Another option for sanding blocks is rigid foam insulation. It's easily shaped by hand or bandsaw, and if you apply sandpaper to the inside of your molding, you can shape the insulation to that shape, then attach to the sandpaper to the block with double stick tape or spray adhesive. Easy peasy