Just completed this walnut mantel for a client. The top is carved out of a solid piece. The client wanted it to feel a bit rustic so thats why things look a but modeled.
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Walnut mantel
- Thread starter Burly Man
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Congrats! Beautiful job! How did you create the vertical spiraling effects? Chuck
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- #3
Wish I could say I did those by hand, but that was the one part from a cnc lathe. Then cut down to 3/4 of the circle on the table saw so you still get wrap around look and glued into a dado. I fully finished the parts separately before gluing them in, otherwise finishing would have been a nightmare trying to get into all those little spaces, sanding between coats, etc.
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Nice job. So the entire top horizontal section is one single walnut board you hand carved? That's one big piece of walnut. Or is it three stacked boards - the very top one is simple squared off board, the middle one has all the box-joint like segmentation, and the third board has the decorative carved dado - which is the way you usually see something this large done. Either way it looks good. I can see that in a southern Calif, Spanish style house with stucco walls, tile roof etc.
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all one board:) The client specifically did NOT want it done the way we would do it today. They were using a mantel in a local historical home as inspiration which was carved from one solid piece of wood (not walnut). Ya, I was very lucky to find a piece large enough from a friend who had sawn the piece about 25 years ago, and I got the legs from him also which were also cut from a single piece. To get the rope twist material to be as close of a match as possible color and grain wise, I cut the blanks for them from the back corner of the columns which of course is hidden. The rest of the column details were also hand carved, scraped with profiled scrapers, etc. I made the dado that accepted the rope twists on the table saw of course.
Here's the inspiration image:
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That's excellent! Old school craftsmanship that is rarely seen today. Hope you were fairly compensated for your time and skills because sadly, people often don't realize how fortunate they are to find someone with the knowledge, skills and time and willingness to do this type of work.
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Beautiful peace very well done. I really liked the rope twist on each side. It has a real craftsman kind of twist of things no pun intended.
I had a legacy ornamental mill years ago, but only did a couple of small projects with it and it was just taken up too much space in my shop so I had to let it go. I did manage to do a rope twist on the spindles for my deck, sorry no pics. The one nice thing about that ornamental mill was that you could crank out a 3 foot long twist in a matter of a couple minutes.
I had a legacy ornamental mill years ago, but only did a couple of small projects with it and it was just taken up too much space in my shop so I had to let it go. I did manage to do a rope twist on the spindles for my deck, sorry no pics. The one nice thing about that ornamental mill was that you could crank out a 3 foot long twist in a matter of a couple minutes.