I’m having the entire chimney refaced with a dry stack ledge stone (not cultured stone) and would like to build an oak Prairie style mantel shelf to run the length of the chimney. I’m thinking metal L brackets behind the stone for the shelf support. Once the structure of the shelf is built and attached do I scribe the top to fit the contour of the stone? Thanks for any advice. -Ed
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Replies
Yeah, I'd scribe the wood to the stone after the stone is set.
But I wouldn't use L-brackets. For one thing, they'll show either under the wood or on top, depending on how you do it. For another thing, even the big ones bend. I'd use pieces of water pipe. You can get a flange that screws on the end of the pipe, and it provides screw holes to fasten it to your framing or whatever you're going to have behind the stone -- that is, whatever you were going to fasten the L-bracket to. The pipe will just come straight out of the finished stone wall. Bore matching holes into the back edge of your mantel, and slip it over the pipes.
I'd have Stainless Steel rods set in the masonry to mount onto.
Excellence is its own reward!
I'm going to disagree with the others and suggest you put the mantel up first. I had this done to one of my prior homes (earthquake repair as a reason for an upgrade) and it worked great.
The carpenter made the mantel as a box and the inside was hollow. He ripped a piece of oak on an angle and installed one part on the wall like this:
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Where the wall is on the right. The other piece was mounted on the back of the mantel so that it fit into the piece on the wall and kept it tight and level.
After themantel is affixed just to the stone work, making sure to cover the mantel so it's not damaged. This is much, much easier than scribing a mantel to the stone work and it also looks much nicer.
John
When I had the house build I than then use a cedar slab and put two post to support it.
About 2 years ago I built this this replacement. It is in the Greene and Greene style of arts and craft style. It is cherry with bloodwood accents.
I don't know how big of a mantle that you are thinking about (thick and deep). But if you get even enough L brackets should work. Another option would be to put in some steel rods. Have matching holes in the mantle and slide them over the rods.
I don't know what you have behind the stone to attach to. But another option would be to put up a wood ledger before they do the stone.
I did not try to stribe to the stone. It is "fairly flat". But I did grinde out a couple of spots where there where stone really stuck out.
Bill, very nice mantel, the corbels are great! That's very similar to what I want to do. There is concrete block behind the stone. I like the idea of the steel rods. Did you have the corbels set prior to the stone work? My mantel will be about 6 feet long. I'm not sure that I'll be able to come across a thick slab so I'll probably have to make the mantel hollow. Thanks for the help. -Ed
Where the corbels are there where just rough cedar post that where set in place when the stone was done. That was over 20 years ago. I was not sure, but when I went to do this I was able to just slide them out. I did some chipping to clean up the pockets and then fill up some voids with some sand mix.
Then I had to some shaving on the corbels and add some shims to give then a snug fit.
" I'm not sure that I'll be able to come across a thick slab so I'll probably have to make the mantel hollow."
Bend over and while I whisper this. I don't want everone to know this. It is all done with smoke and mirrors.
The "slab" is laminated popular and then I skinned with with 1/8" cherry. This was the first time that I tried cutting any veneer with my bandsaw and wasted enough that I could have made it from solid cherry.
The corbels are similar. A lot of the wood that is in the pockets are popular. Also the bottom with the 3x3 pattern is some a small piece of cherry. The grain in run vertical while the grain on the arms run horizonatally
With concrete block behind, you may want to use a 3x5 3/8 thick angle iron,which can be bolted to the block. And your hollow mantel wil slide over the 5" flange.
After it is secured to the angle iron,it will not move! or Bend period. I also agree with Jhardy, build the Mantel first, the stone facing will cover up nicely.
Fullpint, not sure if this will work because of the type of stone that I'm using. The stone is at least 4-6 inches deep, random height and length. If I bolt the angle iron to the block I would need a pretty wide flange. Also I'm trying to picture how the stone mason would carry the stone over the mantel if it was installed before the stone. -Ed
Sounds somewhat similar to the last one I did.
But I mortared my stones. Therefore, I was able to mortar in a couple of perfectly shaped angluar stones to serve as corbels. Then I laid in a 2x stock about 2 inches into the wall and continued to build up another foot with stone. Then took out the 2x and cleaned out the hole so's the matching lip being built into the back of the mantle could slide nicely into it. Completed the stonework and scribed the finished mantle to fit.
How do you plan to use the mantle? In my case, the wife gets goofy around Christmas with her decorations and lites. Accordingly, I built in an outlet underneath, but inside the mantle so the lites and such could be plugged in without seeing the outlet.
Maybe the wife has a picture here somewhere...