Skirting Boards Coming Away From The Wall

Hi Lex, nail guns are great. They are quick and leave a small nail head.
Of course not everyone owns a nail gun. As I mentioned above, just use 65mm nails and pre drill with a 1/8 drill bit about 50mm in depth. This way the nail will stay nice and straight, making nailing very easy but will still get some good hold in the last 1/2". You should be able to hammer the nail in without leaving any two bobs on the skirting. Just stop before the nail head is hit right home and use a nail punch to get the last bit.
Good luck.

Thanks, chippy! Just had a quick peak at nail guns - seems like they are well above $500 . So, this other way will most likely be the way!! But, I always imagined that these nails won't actually have any heads - however, when I search for 65 mm nails, Google shows pretty much the usual nails with heads. So, not sure how can we drive the whole nail, including the head, into the skirting board . Plus, the head is wider, so it will leave a wider hole
Or, am I totally missing the point ?!

Oh, and another thing - should we drive the nails in under some angle, eg. 45 degree? When we were taking the boards off, we found that some were driven at a very sharp angle (to the wall), more like 20-30 deg!

And BTW, I have more questions about shaping of the ends of boards. Last night's BH&Gardens had a segment on exactly this, and using colonial profile boards. They somehow shaped up the curly bits to align with the curls on the adjacent board, but he didn't show or tell how did he figure where exactly to cut the curly bits!! Was it just an approximation, like a guess??


Come to think of it, I think we may just get a pro. What's a fair rate to expect to get someone to come and re-attach the good ones and cut a few new ones in place of those that have been damaged??

Hi Lex. Yes the 65mm nails I am talking about are standard bullet head nails so the head is slightly larger than the shank. It will nail home very easily, just the same as hand nailing into any wood. In this situation though, you use a nail punch to finish the nail just under the surface of the skirting board and then you fill the nail hole. Just nail straight in, no need to angle them.

The process you are talking about at internal corners is called a scribe. What can I say.....
Scribing isn't easy on colonial skirtings. You basically cut the first piece of skirting to go full length from wall to wall (should be the board opposite the door), the next piece that is going to run into it has to have a scribe cut on the end that will run into the first piece. To cut a scribe you need to cut an internal mitre and then using a coping saw carefully cut at right angles (or actually slightly back cut) to the skirting board while following the profile left by the mitre (you should see the outline of the skirting profile if you look at the internal mitre you have cut). It's hard to explain but I'm sure google will be your friend.
It takes some time to become proficient at scribing fancy skirtings. Something like a splayed skirting is very easy to scribe as it is all straight cuts.
Maybe it's time to call in a professional.
The going rate for fixing a whole house of 90mm skirting is $5 per meter.. Over 90mm $6 per meter.
A small amount would be just worked out on a time basis.

Thanks very much, chippy! Yeah, when I think of it a bit more, it's not easy, especially with the fine details/scribing
Thanks again