Comments on: Building Fireplace Mantels

By: Thomas W. Snook

Thomas W. Snook — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 01:49:24 +0000

This is an outstanding book on a focused topic: “Distinctive [Fireplace] Projects for any Style Home.” After discussing some basics of mantel making, he describes in detail from start to finish, step-by-step, including a materials list, suppliers, and tools needed for nine projects to build nine different style firelplace mantels: Simple Colonial, Georgian, Simple Federal, Arts and Crafts, Mackintosh, Victorian, Greene and Greene, Art Deco, and Contemporary. We are updating a fifty-year old home in Coral Gables, Florida. It presently has a very pedestrian fireplace mantel. I wanted a fireplace mantel with more style. My wife and I both loved the Art Deco mantel in the book and I plan to build it almost exactly as described. I should save a considerable amount of money on materials because the mantel is built basically from one sheet of mahogany plywood. The color photographs are also outstanding in clarity and detail.
Rating: 5 / 5

By: B. Rutledge

B. Rutledge — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:52:49 +0000

The book looks nice, and when you first read through the book it APPEARS to be a book you can use to build a mantel. Before I built my mantel I would have given it 4 or 5 stars (like the other people who rated it that have yet to try and build with it), but after building my mantel I wish I could give it less than one star. There are diagrams, but they omit crucial measurements and steps. There are instructions, but once you start to build you realize they are insanely vague at points, and omit crucial steps. The measurements in the text sometimes conflict with the measurements in the diagrams, and both sometimes conflict with reality. The book is OK to get ideas, and you could take a chance and hope the mantle you pick has decent instructions (I didn’t build them all), but you will likely just get frustrated – there are much better books out there. Fortunately I am an experienced finish carpenter and was able to make the mantel I wanted DESPITE the book’s errors and omissions – but keep in mind this is the first one-star review I have given a woodworking book (and I own hundreds).
Rating: 1 / 5

By: James H. Schell

James H. Schell — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 20:57:57 +0000

Excellent for the beginner to the advanced woodworker. Covers framing considerations well, as well as atachment schemes and fasteners.
Rating: 4 / 5

By: Andrew Rubottom

Andrew Rubottom — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:28:33 +0000

I was looking to build my own mantel, and was looking for a few ideas, this book had very few. Poor models (i.e. dimensional issues) and bad editing made it a drag to get through. And on a personal note, the mantels featured in this book are simply put, ugly, and would work in very few homes.
Rating: 1 / 5

By: Thomas L. Bradford

Thomas L. Bradford — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:07:28 +0000

Don’t think this book will help most people. There are too many dimensions missing and wrong. On the Federal mantel the writeup says cut the columns 10 1/2 inches wide but the drawing shows 12 inches. The picture of the mantel shows a full brick clearance at the side of the firebox but the drawing is more like 5 inches.

I got an idea of how a mantel could be made but you must work out your own dimensions. There is no bill of materials as stated before. I think there must be better books on this subject. Not too important but one screw is drawn with left had screws. I am a machanical engineer trying to do wood work.
Rating: 2 / 5