Cutting miters (baseboard) outside range (angle and depth) of saw?

[John TenEyck]

Another way is to cut them at 45° and then increase the angle on a 45° bevel shooting board. Same idea as Wayne's, put a shim under the outside end of the molding to get the angle you want, then a few strokes with the plane and you will have the exact angle you want and the cut will be as good or better than any other way of doing it. And since you are making a higher angle you can cut your initial 45's at final length, if desired.

John

[keith micinski]

Definitely doable by using a shim to increase you angle of attack and not hard at all to get good results. It would be hard to repeat a bunch but as you pointed out every wall is usually a little different. One thing to think about is that the most important part of an outside corner is the leading edge of both cuts. If for some reason I can't get an outside mitre to be exact, one of my favorites being that the wall corner is actually rounded from the drywall guy mudding the heck out of the corner bead so not only is it not square it's not even flat, I over cut the mitre a degree or two and the leading edges meet nice and tight and the only place there is a gap is in the top corner as you look down.

One thing I have learned in home repair is that there are going to be conditions that exist on every single project that, while they could be surmounted just aren't worth the time, effort and expense. I'm not saying to do poor quality work, I'm saying museum quality work isn't always attainable and sometimes you just have to figure out when good enough really is good enough.

I don't think you mentioned if this was stained trim or painted white trim. If it is painted white trim then you literally only have to be with in a degree or two on your joints. Caulking seems and joints will last as long as the trim does and as long as you aren't trying to fill the Grand Canyon it's perfectly acceptable. I have actually found the joints I get perfect tend to open up a hair line with movement and the ones I miss by a hair line and caulk actually stay looking great because the chalk has just enough flexibility to keep everything together.

[Monte Milanuk]

It is painted white fiberboard. I kind of made peace with using more caulk than I'd planned :/

The primary reservation I had about the whole shimming thing is that I'm not sure how well it'd work with my current setup. My Makita 10" SCMS is on a Ridgid MSUV portable stand, so there isn't much in the way of places to actually shim things. There is just the saw's table and... thats it. The stand has two extendable roller stands, but no 'deck' or 'wings' on either side. It'd probably work fine, but it does bother me a little.

[Rich Engelhardt]

By my count, at least 18 outside corners. Some are very small - the end of a wall partition - but others are longer, where a cubby or nook is inset.

Haven't found a square corner yet.

Sometimes it's just easier to make the corners fit the trim.
I've done that also where I cut the pieces to size then glued the miters together & reworked the corner to make the corner fit the trim.

[Jim Dwight]

Also remember that the trim only is visible on the top. If you cut the joints so they fit together tightly on top and on the front edge, the fact that they are not touching the wall firmly at the bottom will not be visible. If necessary, you can put a little glue on the miters and pin the joint together while the glue sets. If you do not have a 23 gauge pinner, HF has them now very inexpensively. I use it for casing returns too.

I have two CMSs, neither sliding, but my favorite is a dual bevel 12 inch Hitachi. I think I paid $150 reconditioned. I have to trim tall base flat too (or touch up the cut where it doesn't show on bottom). But it bevels either direction well. I know a slider can do trim but I think a regular CMS is actually better. You shouldn't be able to push it out of alignment like you can with bad technique on most sliders (maybe all sliders).