Thread: French cleat mantlepiece

Thought I'd post some pics of a little project I did in case it's useful for anyone else.

I was making a mantlepiece to go in a friend's house over their fireplace, but wasn't sure about how to attach it. Ultimately it will be their builder who attaches it (and I won't be there at the time), and I want minimum amount of work for him to do. I don't know where any of the studs or nogs will be, so can't pre drill any holes for rebar etc.

Anyway, what i decided to do was a sort of hidden French cleat. See pics. That way the builder can just screw the mounting piece to the wall wherever he can find fixings. The tricky part was cutting the 45 degree slice out of the mantlepiece in a way that wasn't visible from the side. What I did was lay the piece down on the table saw, turn it on (with blade fully recessed but tilted to 45) and then wind the blade up my pre-measured number of turns. Pushed the piece along almost to the end then wound the blade down again and turned it off. Then shifted the fence a mm or two and repeated a few times. After doing that maybe 10 times I then switched to a dado blade to cut the rest out at 90 degrees.

Seems to have worked out well. Now I'm thinking I should probably attach it to my own wall somewhere just to make sure it actually works...


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