Fireplace Mantle…

Fireplace Mantle…

I mentioned yesterday that one of the things I intended to do was fabricate a mantle for our living room fireplace.

I’d anticipated it taking me a couple of hours, but, like most of my projects, it took the better part of the day, and I actually had to finish it this morning.

Here’s a shot of the fireplace prior to me installing the new mantle.



I should have taken pictures of me during the process as I hit one annoying obstacle after another.

You see Maryan had found this wonderful piece of Red Cedar at a local lumber mill, and now that she’d found the perfect piece of wood, she was holding me to my promise to install it as the mantle before the holidays. I’d originally thought I’d knock off some other things before this on Saturday, but, something told me it would be better to get the mantle done first.

As I was fitting the piece up for length, it was pretty obvious the masons hadn’t given a lot of thought to making the front of the fireplace even. They chose instead to simply let the natural flow of the stone come through. I have to tell you, I really like the look that rough surface provides, but, it lead to a series of very unsightly gaps between the plank and the rock.

The solution? Scribe it of course, and then cut along the scribe line to fit the plank to the flow of the rock. This is where my troubles began.

I carefully scribed the plank to the front of the fireplace and headed out to my now clean and organized shop to cut it out. I grabbed my brand new Bosch 18V saber saw, put in a new blade, slapped in a freshly charged battery and gave the trigger a squeeze.

*Poof… this very pretty, but awful smelling (as those of you who have ever burned out any electrical appliance will attest) small cloud of white smoke came flowing out the vents. The saw never made even a ‘grunt’… just the cloud of smoke… and then nothing.

Now, I said this was brand new, and it was, in December of 2003 when I bought a cordless tool ‘bundle’ of Bosch tools. My old Makita cordless drill had finally died after almost 20 years of service, and I needed another. So I bought this bundle as it was only marginally more expensive than buying the drill alone.

I’ve used the drill, the ‘Skill’ saw, the reciprocating saw and even the flashlight extensively since then. I’d never had a reason to even stick a battery in the skill saw however, before now.

I tried both of the older, corded jig saws I have, but neither of them had the power to cut this 3” piece of lumber.

What did I do? Well I grabbed the Bosch jig saw and headed over to the local Lowe’s Home Improvement center. I stopped in at customer service, to explain that I’d never used the saw, even though I’d bought it nearly two years ago, and that it was flat DOA when I put the battery in it…

To my surprise the woman at the desk was helpful, and called the guy in “Tool World” (Robert) and told him she was sending me over. I’d actually been expecting something along the lines of “it’s been 2 years Sir”…

Unfortunately, they didn’t carry the saw, by itself, and Bosch had since ceased including it in their ‘bundle’… I’m feeling pretty well sunk at this point, but, Robert calls his manager, explains my situation and the manager offers to give me half off on any other saber saw I’d like to replace it!!

I picked out a Bosch corded model, and true to his word, it was discounted and I was on my way home.

I mention Lowe’s by name here, for one important reason. Maryan and I have spent a ton of money there over the past five years. Virtually every stick of lumber, sheetrock, wire, outlets, carpet and vinyl came from there while we were remodeling this place. Not to mention I’ve also bought more than a couple of tools there as well.

They didn’t have to do anything for me, and no one dealing with me yesterday knew if I’d spent $5, $5,000 or $50,000 there in the past. They did however treat me as a valued customer, and went out of their way to ‘make things right’ for me. In this age of super centers were you almost never see an actual clerk, and, when you, do they’re often too ‘busy’ to actually help you, Lowe’s has always been a standout in my experience.

Anyway folks, if you haven’t bought a new power tool lately, when you do, you are in for a treat!! This new saw is 10 ten times what any of my others ever were. It handled this oversized plank without even getting warm. I had to make several cuts to get it ‘just right’, but, in the end, I think it turned out nicely.

I fastened it to the old stone mantle with some “Kwik-Tap” masonry screws. Again, if you have to attach anything to masonry, these or the “Tap-Con” screws are the ticket. Oh, and for masonry drill bits… the Black&Decker FireStorm bits are the “real deal”, they cut quickly, and hold up well, and (more importantly) are about half the cost of some other brands.

I also fixed the toilet in our Master bathroom yesterday, but I didn’t think y’all needed pics of that!!

I’m off to go play electrician and wire up those outside floodlights and outlets I found while cleaning the shop last week! I hope everyone is having a great weekend!