Removing cornice in one piece

[cohunas]

Hi,
First post - ready to look like an idiot.

I have split a large room that has cornice installed at 240mm (ceiling) by 110mm (wall) size into a couple of smaller rooms. I have been unable to match this cornice to run along the new common wall, but was hoping to be able to remove some of it in one piece from one room to complete the cornice in the other due to the high price of buying cornice at this size (I should not that the ceiling plasterboard has been hung only to 210mm from the wall so smaller cornice is not really an option without a lot of work).

Have found the cornice very brittle and hard to remove. Any tips for doing this cleanly??

THanks.....

[jimc]

You will have no chance removing the cornice intact.

Are you sure that your cornice profile is not being made by someone like Croydon Plaster Mouldings?

If not the do not stress...if you manage to get a good 1 - 1.5 metre section of your existing cornice, they can make up a custom mould for you.

Another alternative...what I did...was strip what I had and replaced complete room with new style. Fancy cornice is cheap...approx $20 per 3.6 metre length.

[Hybrid]

I recently removed some cornice managing to keep roughly half the pieces in tact. If I had of taken my time and tried harder I think I may have been able to remove all of the cornice without damage. I have basic cornice (called Cove Cornice I think) so I wasn't that concerned if I had to buy new stuff.

I scored the top and bottom edges and the corner joins with a stanley knife first the break the paint seal. I then tried to separate the cornice cement by tapping a paint scraper into the join with a hammer to break the seal of the cornice cement. If you work at this slowly you should be able to remove the cornice in tact if you have the patience

[Tiger]

I too have tried this without much success. That cornice cement sticks like glue . A sharp stanley knife and some other tool that can reach further will help but don't be too disappointed if it still breaks. I wonder if a professional could rescue a long piece of cornice if it's not readiy obtainable?

[scooter]

Dear option but opportunity to buy a new tool - what about one of those Fein multi purpose tools with the flush cutting saw?


Cheers...........Sean

[rick_rine]

I have had success removing cornices in one piece by cutting deeply through the paper with a stanley knife and being carefull using a claw hammer to remove the cornice .
Rick

[cohunas]

Thanks all - I will try the softly softly approach and see how I go.

I'm guessing a lot of time taken for little gain but you never know.

[cohunas]

Hi All,

Finally got around to attacking this job with great sucess. Ended up using a wide scraper and a rubber mallet. Trimmed all the joins first, cut the cornice into 1000mm sections, and removed each section in one piece with minimal damage.

Thanks for the tips.

[scooter]

Good onya cohunas, should spend more time here mate, taking 6 months to get a round tuit you fit right in with the worst of us procrastinators...


Cheers..............Sean