Hand-carved Mantel with Hand-forged Fireplace Screen

The clients I built this hand-carved solid walnut mantel for wanted a very free-form, sculptural design, a centerpiece for their living room invoking nature, the forest.  As with all projects, I hand select all the wood for color, grain, and qualty for carving.  After the client approves the scale drawing, I enlarge the drawing to full scale, making any design adjustments that didn't show on the scale drawing.  The construction details and techniques are also planned during this stage.  I do all my drawings by hand, because as you can see, you would never get this elaborate or creative design from a CAD system.  

The mantel is constructed paying close attention to matching the grain.  Then the real fun begins.  First I rougly shape the piece, and then step by step refine the details until I am happy with everything.  Then I start sanding, to refine the carving, smoothing it out so that it feels almost fluid to the touch.

The clients also wanted a non-toxic finish so I used a hand-rubbed oil finish.  It really brought out the beauty of the wood.

The full scale drawing of the iron work was done at the same time as the carved mantel, but the pattern needed to be transferred to a piece of plywood because I am working with red-hot iron.  As the pieces are completed they need to be fit and matched to the pattern, and a paper pattern would burn from the heat.  You can see the scorched wood on my patten in the video below.  Here I am forging the leaves.

Each piece is forged and fit together.  Finally, I forge the hinges formaing branches and leaves to functions as the hinges. 

Beautiful art for your home, which I call Architectural Art, adds so much to the ambiance of your surroundings.