OK, I got my room painted. Now it is chair rail time. I have found some oak that I like for the chair rail, and I think it will stain to the shade I want. (I’m gonna buy a piece to try out.) I have never installed a chair rail before, so I have some questions.
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[li]What is the best way to attach the oak chair rail to the wall? It is a lath and plaster wall with 67 coats of paint on the wall (latex) Should I try and glue it or go with nails?[/li][li]If I go with nails, what do you suggest I putty over the holes with?[/li][li]Again with the nails. Any tips on driving nails into plaster so that it does not crack?[/li][li]If I glue it which glue?[/li][li]How do I keep the chair rail in place while the glue sets?[/li][li]I have three walls that will need between 10’ and 12’ of chair rail. Should I do these as one long piece, or is it easier to do two pieces with a joint in the middle?[/li][li]Any other suggestions?[/li][/ol]
Nail it. I can’t imagine glue working (as you suggest, clamping the rail while the glue dries isn’t a terribly practicable proposition).
Any decent hardware/paint store will have a selection of small jars of colored putty. Pick the one closest to your finish color.
Predrilling the holes should help with the plaster (and help you drive the nails if your studs, like my 90-year-old studs, have “petrified”). Of course, use a bit smaller than the nail. . . .
If you can get pieces long enough to avoid joints, do so. If you have to do a joint, miter cut it (45 degrees). You should drive a small nail through the overlap to pull it together.
Finding studs in a wall like yours is a tricky matter, since even a good stud finder is hit-or-miss with a plaster/lath wall. Best bet is to drill holes in the wall (in the area that will be covered by the trim - an 1/8" bit is plenty) to find the studs (after a few tries you should be able to tell the difference between a hit and a miss). You can measure out from a certain stud location at 16" intervals to find the other studs, but since stud spacing is notoriously variable in old homes, you should drill to verify. (Since you’ve already painted the wall, you can mark the stud locations by putting pieces of masking tape on the wall.)
Have fun.
If you have access to a finish nailer that would be the easiest method. have a person hold the molding in place and shoot a million nails into it your chances of hitting a stud or two are pretty good the more nails you use. If you can actually find the studs you’d only need a nail every other stud. If you wanted you could use glue in addition to nails but thats only added security. Glue alone will not work. On chair rail you can usual nail in at an upward angle minimizing the visibility of nail heads after the railing in place you hit each nail head with wood putty of the appropriate flavor.(in your case red oak. After doing so you may be able to find the heads but the casual observer won’t. A few coats of poly is needed to protect the wood. I tend to put a coat or two on before I hang natural woods because it’s easy when the arn’t attached. You need at least one more coat to cover the wood putty and suach after its hung.
Always use full pieces unless you are skilled and plan on painting it(then you could hide the joint). If you have to use two or more pieces on a single wall. cut both pieces at an angle to help blend them together better.
Rick, you might not like ths idea, but I’ll toss it out anyway because it might inspire a better idea. Plus, it’s an excuse to buy a new toy. You can use long drywall screws to attach the rail. If you pre-drill, you can get them into a lathe or a stud.
Here’s where the new toy comes in. To hide the screw heads, pre-drill your screw hole and drill a counter-sink in the thick part of the chair rail before driving the screw. Say a 3/8" hole. Then use a 3/8" plug cutter on a drill press to cut a plug from a scrap piece of the molding. The plug will be face grain (instead of end grain, like a dowel rod) and the color of the wood is guaranteed to match. Glue the plug in place and use a razor saw to cut it flush and then sand it.
I have a set of plug cutters and sometimes use the plugs to hide screws. If you line up the grain in the plug, you can’t even see it.
If I assume this is a smaller piece of trim, 1 piece, less than 4" wide and 1/2" thick—
Prefinish wood. Use pieces cut to length, no joints. 1 piece chair rail isn’t that big nor heavy. Glue (such as gorilla glue,) use a finish nailer sparingly to tack into place, nailing from the floor side angle if possible, minimal nailing otherwise. If it’s plaster and lathe not necessary to find studs, again because this is more cosmetic than functional. You may not need to fill in wood holes, especially if you use a pin nailer, they’ll be really small, and sometimes filler makes them stand out more.
(Disclaimer–Yes, this isn’t the official proper “finish carpenter” way, but this is an easy, simple home owner type project without a painter following him, etc.)
Do not bother to try and find the studs under lathe and plaster in an older home.
Use finishing nails, which are completely different from small ordinary nails. They have a different cut so that they pierce wood without splitting it, they have a small head, and they are made of very stiff and slightly brittle wire. It is OK but not absolutely necessary to predrill the chair rail with a tiny drill bit smaller than the diameter of the nail but do not predrill the plaster and lathe.
Use a nail punch to set the nails.
Do not seam the chair rail if you can avoid it and if you must, use a 45 degree miter overlap.
Do not use a power finish nailer unless the nails are short and you are positive you are not piercing an unprotected something (plumbing, wiring) inside the wall.
Nail at regular intervals and gauge how many nails to use by how much curve there is in the plaster and how tightly you need the chair rail to hug the wall.
Finish the chair rail, including the varnish or polyurethane topcoat, before you nail it. This is much more convenient, but more importantly you do not want to apply nail putty before the top sealant coat is on. Nail putty, which comes in various shades to match the finish, has a stain in it. This stain will bleed out and casue a big dot in unfinished wood, so the trick is to do it last. Only the tiny tip of the nail punch will be visible. Most chair rail has a horizontal groove in it near the thicker part of the woor. Set the nail into this groove.
At the corners, the easiest way for amateurs is to cut a 45 degree miter. If you want to be fancy, butt one end into the wall and cope the other to match the shape of the chair rail. Usually not worth it for newbies.
Stain the ends of the chair rail after mitering because the raw wood will have a different color and minor separation may occur.
Because the wall is plaster it has variations in its surface. You will likely need to apply a thin bead of caulk at the top and bottom of the chair rail to fill the gap between the chair rail and the wall. Practice applying this caulk; use a high quality paintable caulk. Paint this the color of the wall. The caulk will also act as a glue of sorts, and the chair rail will hold in place nicely.
And thanks for the car tips.
Lots of good ideas here.
I think I will probably go with the air finish nailer. give me an excuse to buy or rent a new toy. 
Yes I am going to pre-finish the chair rail.
Yes, I can buy wood long enough to do each wall in one piece.
Chief Pedant You are 100% correct about needing the caulk, the walls in a genuine lath and plaster house are not flat, and the wood I am sure will not conform to the surface 100%
Thanks for all the help everyone!
Sorry to be a late contributor, but I’ll throw out another option: finishing screws. I have and love my finishing nail and brad guns, but certain situations call for a different approach.
Finishing screws can be found with a #1 square drive head (all but eliminates camout), and the head diameter is just a little bigger than the shank. Predrilling oak to preclude splitting is the way to go, and I’ve found that the added grab of screws can help to reduce gappage owing to wall irregularity.
Thanks, I will look for those, and see what I think.
I would recommend coping the corners. With miters at the corners, you never win: either the wood is a skosh too long and you get a bowing effect that you have to force into submission with nails, or it’s too short, and the miter shows a huge gap.
Besides, it’s kind of a pain in the butt to saw the piece perfectly to length. When you cope joints, the non-coped part can vary in length a little without anyone seeing it.
o Plan your coping so that each piece has one flat end and one coped end if possible – this makes it so that the length is not so critical.
o Plan the coped joints so that from the normal viewing angle (e.g. from the door) the non-coped piece is facing the viewer.
o Here’s the neat part: Cut the piece you plan to cope with a miter saw at a 45, just as if you were to do it the lame miter way. Now use your coping saw and follow the line formed by the front of the molding and the miter cut. You will have a perfect coped joint if you do this.
True. For more detailed profiles, I use the coping saw to get close, and then finish with the little sanding drum or a burr in a Dremel™ tool.
Cut it close, use a grinder, skip the coping saw. Takes a little adjustment to get used to, and some finishers will never make the transition, but works really well.