Fireplace mantle....

[mrcaptainbob]

Our house is about 140years old and we have a nice old brick fireplace with no mantle. We have PLENTY of blackwalnut trees around, one of which just got knocked down by a wind storm four days ago. My wife has been after me to make a nice mantle from one of these trees. Looks like opportunity just fell my way! I've read (and experienced!!) about how 'field' wood should not be bought into the house. Powder post, caarpenter ants, and other 'pets' come along with it. sSo, I'd like to cut a srction of this tree for a future mantle. What process do I go through to make sure it won't warp after I cut it to shape, and what do I do to make sure it's no longer infested with critters?

[UNCLEBUCK]

I guess if it was me I would saw the mantle piece and install it tomorrow in your home instead of waiting forever for the piece to dry and just install it so it has allowance for shrinkage if need be . I would say the driest safest place for it is above your fireplace . It might cup a bit if it has too much flat sawn grain but maybe you can get a nice vertical grain quarter sawn piece out of that log somewhere . I have seen nice mantles 2" thick or even 12"thick but if your mantle will be of the thinner type any type of fastening from underneath into more wood should eliminate your warping .

[Texas Ranger]

Powder post hits only old dry wood, carpenter ants will be in a hollow.  Most pests will be visible in the fresh cut wood if they are there, but, cut the planks, sticker them, and let them dry under a cover.  After 4 days you should not be bringing in any pests.

[crtreedude]

Cutting it and sticking it in place while green is interesting. Down here we are in the process of building a house down on the finca for a caretaker and visitors.  Because I want to understand how things are done down here - I generally just let everyone do there thing as far as building will very little oversight - and it has been working wonders.

Anyway, not having spent my life building things - I was surprised that they would drop a tree, turn it into lumber and nail it up - all in the course of a few days or a week. After the beams have been up for a while, the only thing I see that is wrong is a few of them have cracks - and not very large cracks at that.

It seems to me that I read or heard that people used to cut oak for construction and put it up without drying in the USA.

Tropical woods tend not to warp much because they don't have a pronounced winter / summer period. 

[Tom]

We have a lot of rural folks that do the same.  I think it works because they've never had a college educated smart aleck tell them that it won't.   I've asked a few times if they were afraid of it and the answer has always been "it'll dry up there as good as it will in the barn".    I can't argue with them too much.  They seem to know when the wood has to be dried though.  Flooring and furniture woods generally get stacked.

[beenthere]

Drying in place can produce some great looking curved and split mantles, as well as some straight ones. I have one that started out a 6" by 14" cherry cant. After many years of drying in place, I had it jointed, planed and then mounted tight on the brick with oak paneling above. Looks great now too, but straighter than before. Really was a fun process with the family watching it move around over the years as it dried. The cherry tree it came from was not straight, so there are some interesting grain patterns and some deep checks. As a mantle, it looks great.

[mrcaptainbob]

Great! That's what I needed to know. I plan to saw off enough to take the center out to maybe a 6 or 8 x 12. I have a 'vision' of it having some character lines along it's length. I wonder if it'll move around over the years like the cherrwood one did. Would be neat!