Q. I have wasted about 25 linear feet of solid-wood baseboard trying to get perfect cuts. The problem is not in the rooms but when I try to extend the trim moldings up the stairs of my house. No matter how I set my miter saw, the angles I cut do not work. Surely there must be an easy way to determine what the angle must be. How do you do install stair trim moldings? - B.K., Levittown, N.Y.

A. With the cost of solid-wood trim going up instead of down, you simply can't afford to make mistakes when using expensive trim moldings. The sad fact is the answer to your dilemma was staring right at you the entire time. Scrap trim molding, a pencil and 15 seconds of time would have produced an exact template of the angles that needed to be cut.

Cutting stair trim moldings at precise angles can bring back memories of failed high school geometry tests to many a homeowner who tackles difficult carpentry tasks on an irregular basis. Perhaps the most frustrating thing is having a mental picture of how the trim should look but not being able to determine how the simple angles are created.

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