Thread: Red pine needed to restore mantle

Hard call.

Best bet may be to trawl through building salvage yards or timber recyclers if there are any near you. You may get lucky and find a b*ggered or disassembled version that can be repaired.

Gday Nick, I have a couple of large pieces, will need to check sizes or else I have some that could be glued up into a panel. Does the old mantle have a panel each side with the seperation between the arches? If so, the grain in the panels is oriented at 2 o clock up towards the centre where they join to the centre block,. not straight up and down like the pilasters AFAIK . You may need to recalculate your sizes

Thanks Rowie, Was told it was red pine by the builder and will call him on Monday to confirm which red pine he is reffering to. Did some net research and it only opened more questions than answered.

Rimu was also known as red pine in the past (?) so how to tell the difference between Rimu and California redwood?

You are correct in that the arch is two pieces of wood with the separation between the arch at the top, the grain runs towards 2 o clock.

Mantle is from a pre 1900 victorian house in Yea, Victoria, found a christmas card dated 1900 behind the mantle along with some other little treasures. Tempted to remove the three other mantels just to see whats behind them!. Would the location and time tend to effect the source of wood or did timber come from all around the world back then?

Thanks
Nick

A friend has a 1920s house in Melb. and there's lots of 'red pine' panelling in the main rooms. Told me that lots of folk mistake it for Aus. red cedar but the grain and colour are clearly different.

I have a disassembled mantel of red cedar to finish restoring. The infill arch is one piece about 90cm wide.

And yes, the architectural salvage guys always look behind the mantle for treasures. Rings, coins, banknotes ....