Talk:Coping (joinery)

Reason for scribing or coping
"when walls are not square to each other." A mitre joint can be perfectly fit to any angle, it is not restricted to exactly 45 degrees. I don't like altering other people's work but this is plainly wrong and not the reason for using scribed joints. billbeee 20:37, 3 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Go for your life, it's never stopped anyone in the past. And while you're at it, maybe you should look at the Scribe joinery article. You need to make the article consistent though. You've started using scribe halfway through. It either needs to use cope all the way, and acknowledge scribing at the top, or it needs to be all moved to Scribing. SilentC 23:01, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

While it is possible to mitre corners that are not 90 degrees, it usually requires further tools or at least techniques. Coping the joint instead is one alternative. So, while a corner angle of other than 90 degrees may not be an absolute reason to cope the joint, it would be a reasonable one. Tenbergen (talk) 21:56, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I just looked at 4 woodworking books and could not find a reference about why one would use a coped corner. Using a coped corner allows one to hide imperfections better by moving the angle from which errors are the most obvious.

With a miter joint, any error would be most visible from the middle of the enclosed angle. In case of mouldings, that would be somewhere near the center of the room.

With a coped joint, errors will be most visible when viewed in parallel to the un-coped part, i.e. the one that the coped part butts against. I think it would be good to add this here, but I would like to have more of a reference than my own opinion. Anyone have something? Tenbergen (talk) 00:51, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Re. merging with scribe joinery
Coping is a form of completing scribe joinery. They should only be merged if there is a comeplete section on all forms of scribe joinery, including mitreing and molding as well, and any other forms people use. Until then, they need to be kept apart, as they are related, but not the same in function or usage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.15.197.157 (talk) 13:50, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

One of the easiest ways to cope a joint is to cut a miter on a power saw and then use the edge to cut the coping profile. That technique doesn't really include any scribing, as in drawing or scratching to mark before cutting. I think this are legitimatly two articles, who probably should refer to each other. Tenbergen (talk) 21:56, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree with user:Tenbergen, for me "scribing" is "the act of using" (verb) a scribe (noun) (see wood scribe) to mark a measured line on a piece of work material, wood, metal or otherwise. I agree in woodworking there are common, although "specialized", scribing tricks and techniques as in coping or marking for cabinetry. These special techniques could be mentioned in an article called scribing (woodworking). The same article can then reference this one, wood scribe, Marking gauge and other joinery (woodworking) articles. Another alternative I would be happy with would be a master article on the Scribe (hand tool) that has sub sections for metal, wood, and any other specializations people come up with. (see Scriber as in metal working) --Maxelrod (talk) 00:23, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Even after the above discussion someone merged scribeing with coping. To scribe is a broader concept than to cope and is used with materials other than wood such as metal, stone and brick. Scribe deserves it's own article which I may create if I can find time. Jim Derby (talk) 15:02, 10 March 2014 (UTC)