Heart-pine mantel

[BuckeyeDennis]

It’s expected to hit three below here tonight in Central Ohio, so still tis the season to enjoy a nice roaring fire. What better time to share my mantel-building project with you guys? Besides, if I don’t post this soon, Sir Paul of the Green Barn will be beat me to press with his gigantic new table build, and that sucker will make my mantel look like a mere matchstick! So here’s a teaser shot of the finished project, illuminated by early-morning sunlight through the windows.

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When my wife and I had our house built, we wanted a nice mantel, but it just wasn’t in the budget. No problem, I thought, I’ll build one myself soon enough. Yea, right -- twenty-two years later. The mantel build was finally completed in 2012, and it was the very first project to use my Shopsmith.

After toying with several designs, I decided on a rustic beam-style mantel. I made full-sized paper templates of the beam and corbels, taped them to the wall over the fireplace, and played around with the proportions until I was satisfied. The design wound up calling for an 8”x10” beam. Six and a half feet long for the mantel, plus a couple more feet for the corbels.

I had thought that I’d get a hardwood beam, probably oak, but soon learned that a solid hardwood beam that size isn’t so easy to find locally. But as luck would have it, a guy on Craigslist was selling some antique heart-pine beams in the size that I wanted. I did some research, and learned that heart pine is roughly as hard as black cherry, with density and strength comparable to red oak. And it looked good in photos online, so I decided to buy a beam for my mantel.

The seller had salvaged the timbers from several old barns to build a new barn for himself, and the heart pine beams had been stored in one of those old barns for some 50 years. Before that, I’m told that they were structural beams in an old International tractor plant near Dayton. So they probably date back to the 1800’s, when Southern heart pine was commonly used for structural timbers. It’s naturally rot-resistant, and was once plentiful.
Here’s the stack of rough beams from whence mine came. They had been left out in the weather for a couple years at that point.

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Now mind you, I didn’t want the mantel to be quite that rustic. But as luck would have it, the building in the background of the photo houses an antique sawmill, and they resawed one of the beams to my 8”x10” dimensions. Here’s my beam after resawing, still at the mill.

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The end grain had absorbed a fair amount of water. The first several inches were pretty badly checked, but the middle section was solid.

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Toting it home required a couple of helpers, as the beam weighed over 200 pounds. Then I let it dry out in my workshop for several months. Some of the cutoff slabs from resawing were thick enough to make useful boards, so I took them home as well.

More to come tomorrow ...

[B B Baby]

NICE, REAL NICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wood is natural not man made like Corrianne. I spend many $ on simple projects in the wood. I just bought a 7"x24"x1/2 thick" piece of Birds Eye Maple for 18$

[rjent]

Wow Dennis, can't wait to see the "big" picture!

Looks great!

[algale]

The preview looks absolutely beautiful!

[masonsailor2]

Very nice ! There is always something deeply satisfying in reclaiming a beautiful piece of old wood.
Paul

[ventrac4231]

Dennis, That is an AWESOME looking piece. Beautiful Project.

Best Regards
Eric

[JPG]

I dunno, it looks kind of pithy to me!

[wrmnfzy]

I love heart pine, it'll be great!

[paulsgreenbarn]

those beams are a real find.Do they have more ?I can't wait to see the completed mantel.

[JPG]

Y'all notice the closeness of the rings. Very old growth fer sure! More than a half century of growth in the supports.