BHOFM

My neighbor is a stone mason. He is working on a
fire place in a $5,500,000 house. It is eight feet
wide and seventeen feet tall. In rough stone. The
fire box is four feet wide.

I did the mantel for them from a 5"X9" Douglas fir
beam from a barn built in the mid 1850's. All they
wanted was the gray taken off and some pockets for
the mounting blocks.

The piece was not stable, so I put some one inch
oak dowels through it to prevent more splitting.

We measured the radius of the rings and determined
the tree was nine feet across at the point this piece
was cut. It has 78 rings in this piece. Making the tree
about 1600 years old at the time it was cut.

Gerry KIERNAN

Now, that's a mantle.

I'd love to see some pictures of the fireplace after you get the mantle installed. It must be quite something.

Gerry

firehawkmph

Nice wood BH.
I would like to see the installed beam too. Looks pretty nice.
Mike Hawkins