How to Fix Open Miters

hello and welcome to Vancouver carpenter does your trim ever look like this mine does too occasionally because on this job I was using this crappy old saw that I have the stops set at exactly 45 so a quick tip for you guys if you want to make it so that you're outside miters close-up on almost every corner you can actually cut all of your outside miters at 46 degrees and that works pretty well so it's a pretty easy fix to fix these and make them look good once they're painted up if you're doing stained grade trim though then you blew it and you should have figured out how to make those tight but we are doing paint grade today so what I like to use for trim especially things like this is Dyna patch or Elmer's wood filler something like that the reason is these dry nice and strong so I've seen some people they like to wipe caulking into an open joint and I don't like that because what happens is it shrinks so you can always see the coved out little space from where the caulking has shrunk alright let's get on to fixing this so you'll want a couple of putty knives size doesn't matter too much in this case it's you know I've got a two inch and a six inch here the two inches for putting the putty on the six inches just for holding the material anyways let's get it closed up so you guys can see what I'm doing here so you can easily do this up to an eight and I mean with enough coats you can even do it with the quarter inch gaps which I don't know why you have quarter-inch gaps in your trim and I'm not gonna ask anymore but basically it's pretty simple what we're doing here is I've just scooped the putty off and we're just gonna fill it like so and you're just kind of making sure that you're actually getting this stuff pressed into the gap that's the most important part is that it's actually getting filled in and I'm living dangerously on the edge here you should put some tape on the floor especially when it comes time to sanding but you know a bit of a cowboy here I'm skilled with the putty knife so I'm not gonna get it on the floor but I'm just wiping it into here and now I'm just gonna clean my blade so I don't get it on the floor and now I'm just gonna wipe up like so and I'm gonna go to the other side wait up like so and that's now looking pretty full but I'm gonna give it just a little more attention because it's almost good to actually leave a little bit extra on the outside here's why is that little gap might shrink and I don't want it to shrink cuz then I may as well have just cocked it so I'm actually going lightly now a little bit lighter and now I've got just a tiny bit of extra build up on the edge here and that stuff I'm gonna come and sand off later and I'm gonna have a perfectly square corner let's do one more real quick okay so this one's actually pretty wide at the bottom and it's been dented somebody probably slammed a broom into it okay so again it's the same thing just fill it up careful not to get it on the floor but you're not going to because you're gonna be smart and tape it not like me and I just by going like this it forces it into that edge and then that extra push right here is what really fills it in I'm gonna just do it one more time even though I think that was kind of good enough all right guys on the floor but I did you guys clean my knife off okay so that last pass left it built up just a little bit more right here and that's perfect that's how I want it okay now I'm not gonna touch it so once those are dry the next thing to do is sand them and that dinah patch dries really quickly so does wood filler that's one of the reasons I like those products is you can apply it and then within an hour it's usually sandable so I like to use a piece of sandpaper and I fold it in a certain way so first what I'm gonna do this one's too which is not course enough it's all I had in my band oh I would use like 150 for sanding wood fillers but I like to fold it in half like so and this is just to get a line to tear it on so I've got it folded like so the next thing is I'm gonna use something sharp like this to tear that edge okay next is how I fold this now this seems a little bit trivial and kind of micromanaging but it's actually important because so what I do is I hold it like this and then open it up and I fold this one in to that crease fold that one over and fold that one over and I was about to tell you why but I needed to show you the reason is now I've got four sides of this that I can use so right now I've got this side in this side when those get burned up you open it up and you go like this and so now I've got two more fresh sides and the other reason is when I'm using a piece of sandpaper instead of a sanding block I'm able to really put a little more pressure anywhere I need to so if I've got kind of a hard edge like I didn't wipe my filler off good enough I can put a little more pressure with my fingers and also the other thing you can do is wear away your fingertips and commit crimes okay but really though it is actually kind of important how you fold this up because if you fold it up like this like that you're gonna be wearing away these two sides just from the sand paper wearing itself away so it's pretty straightforward just sand it off gently what you want to make sure of is that not only do you send this part nice and flush like so but that you also make sure that you send where you wear your filler ends so right around here the filler is ending and if you don't sand carefully this whole spot right here you're gonna have a hard edge you'll see it after you paint so that's why I like to be able to use my fingers and actually put that extra bit of pressure and it even helps you know I can get right down here without scratching the floor too the other side next finally you shouldn't be leaving edges this sharp they're just gonna get chipped and blown out anyway it's so a really quick pass like this gives it a very slightly eased edge it'll help it last longer so that's how I like to fix it when my my toes are a little bit open like I say little a little paint makes a carpenter what he ain't but in this case it's spackle and for those of you that are from the east coast of the US and you like to call joint compound spackle no this is spackle for filling little things this is drywall mud not spackle anyways I hope you found this video useful thanks for watching Vancouver carpenter and until the next video and if you want to help out the channel you can do all those you know like subscribe you to be things so anyways thanks for watching Vancouver carpenter till the next video

Channel: Vancouver Carpenter

Views: 2,026,388

Rating: 4.8651261 out of 5

Keywords: baseboard, trim, miter, mitre, open, fix, fill, casing, carpentry, filler, spackle, drywall, mudding, taping, wall, ceiling, repair, patch, hole, renovation, remodel, DIY, paint, painting, how to

Id: TqmrEcpqKw8

Length: 7min 44sec (464 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 22 2019