I've got a clear finished baltic pine coffered ceiling. False beams, 3 1/2" typical colonial crown. The challenge is that annoying transition from the flat wall to the raked/vaulted 20 degree ceiling.

It's been awhile since I've had to do a raked crown. The way I've done it in the past is the old school three piece(ugly) or the newer school roll the crown until it looks okay in both planes(better). That only works on paint grade crowns where you can caulk the lower edge of the crown on the non raked wall.

I've got a different option in mind. If you install the raked crown at it's typical 52/38 install angle, cut the regular 45 miters, the non raked wall is severely rolled. But, if I cut the bottom edge level and cut the back relief vertical, it lays nicely on the wall. I can manage these changes easily because of the short distances between the false beams.

The only reason I'm considering this is because of the clear finish.

The proper way is to use a developed moulding on the sloped portion. 2 different profiles that match when mitered together. Anything else is wood butchery.

Then when you get into really being proper you say that crown is a horizontal memeber. Its not run on slopes/rakes. Its terminated where the rake begins and thats the end of it.

We are in Mid-Atlantic and with double-wides everywhere here, back in the GC days we were either asked to run, or asked how to run, crown around a cathedral ceiling and our answer was always "you dont run crown on the rake".

My answer to anyone insisting was always to terminate to some sort of ornamental transition block at all corners if the design/decor allowed. Some were fine with that, others didnt like it. But the bottom line is running crown on a rake your out of any formal design standard so it is what it is.

Thanks Mark

It’s one of those situations where there is no good solution.

I’m all about architectural correctness, until there is no such thing as you mentioned in this case. At the end of the day, you are often given a problem with no perfect solution when trimming houses. Not every detail is ideal

New custom cutter is not going to happen. Do you see anything inherently wrong with rolling the existing crown & recutting the back angles. I did a sample with a hand and power plane and it looks good. Way better than the other options.

Your only oprions are whatever you and the customer are willing to live with. Your outside the box so nothings off the table or unacceptable at that point. Custom cutter is a nightmare unless your just talking a sigle peak, 4 rakes, and horizontal runs. If you have any other odd transitions in there, up rake to horizontal and back or anything its multple different profiles.

You could grind a rosette cutter of the crown profile, make rosettes, and cut segments out to be radius transitions.

Raking moulds are used on exterior cornice work frequently; as mentioned, you'd need to graphicly generate a raking profile to match your "typical" crown. But since youre unwilling to have cutters made, your options are to force the moudings to meet- which may or may not come out well, or install a square block in the corners to cut both planes to. The block can be square cornered or a simple tooled corner often looks good

Here is a pic of a way to handle the interface. Think about exterior trim, how a raked crown at a gable resolves down at its bottom end atop a roof return.

You don't have a roof return, but you can apply the concept. Run the level crown past where the ceiling springs up, and far enough so you can self-return it to the wall, cap it with a piece of 1/2 inch something (miter the cap if you are anal like me) and then your raked crown can begin from there.

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Gary M. Katz
This is Carpentry