Trim guys who caulk the miter on outside corners are hiding bad work

I walked a kitchen job in Des Moines last month where the trim guy had smeared paintable caulk down every outside corner of the crown. Two weeks later the joint opened up 1/16 inch and the paint cracked right along the line. Caulk is for gaps, not for fixing a miter you cut at 44 instead of 45.5. I check the corner with a scrap of 220 paper first, and if I can slide it in more than a hair, I recut it, I do not fill it. A tight miter with a little glue and a pin nail holds for 20 years in a house that moves with the seasons. If your corners need caulk to look right on install day, what do you think they look like next January? Curious if anybody else flags this on punch walks or if I am the only one crawling around with sandpaper.

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uma_ellis8d ago

That sandpaper trick is smart. I started doing something like that years ago on baseboard outside corners in a 1920s bungalow. Old plaster walls, nothing square. One corner was off by almost an eighth. The guy before me had pumped caulk in it and painted over. Looked fine for a month. Then the heat came on and it split open like a bad seam. I pulled the piece, shimmed the back, recut at 46, and glued it up. Still tight three winters later. Caulk hides the gap on day one and shows it off by day ninety.

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