A client ripped my cope joints apart, then showed me a better way to cut them

I've been doing cope and stick for 15 years, always used a jigsaw then a rasp to clean up. Last month a homeowner in Asheville watched me for a bit and said, 'You're fighting the grain, why not back-cut with a 45 first?' I thought he was full of it until he grabbed a scrap, ran it through the miter saw at 45, then coped it. Took me three tries, but the joint closed up tighter than anything I'd done before. Now I cut that back angle on every coping job, even around those tricky rosette blocks. It added maybe 20 seconds per joint, but saved me a ton of sanding and fitting time. Has anyone else switched to that method, or do you still trust the old rasp approach?

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phoenix84516d ago

Ha! So the homeowner out-carpentered the carpenter with 15 years of experience. Classic. I gotta say though, I tried that back-cut trick after my last job turned into a sanding marathon, and yeah, it's a game changer. The miter saw setup takes me a hot minute to get right on those rosette blocks, but once I got it dialed in, the rasp barely touches the wood now. Still keep the old files in the truck for the stubborn stuff, but I'm not going back to fighting the grain like some kind of caveman.