PROJECT PLAN
FIREPLACE SURROUND
By Alastair Mitchell

Alastair's new house contained an old fashioned grey brick faced fireplace, with a red tiled hearth. To modernise the look of the living area and add value to his property, Alastair created his very own carved fireplace surround and mantle piece and shares the trials and tribulations of the project with us here.

During renovations at my home in Perth, Western Australia, we were confronted with a dark grey brick faced fire place and a red tiled hearth, this was popular in the 1970's. After removing the mantle shelf, I simply faced the brick and tile hearth by laying over with 12" square grey marble tiles. Next I fitted a gas log fire into the old grate space and measured up for a fire place surround to include a mantle shelf.

First I biscuited together three boards of wood as shown in 
Fig 1 (left) at a, b and c. Then, using a flexible curve, I drew on the chosen curving profile. Normally a wood worker would bandsaw the pattern on each board and then glue up the three boards. I find it is less of a bother to glue up, mark out and use any of the 100mm shaping blades to quickly cut the waste away and follow with Arbortech's 100mm (4") sanding pad, to sand precisely into the chosen line. This is the curving profile seen when the fire place is viewed from the front as shown above in the main picture.

Illustration No. 2

Illustration No. 3

Illustration 4
Shows the tube moulding on the outside corner and on the inside edge

Illustration No. 5
Shows the corner 'tube' moulding

This picture shows moulding detail on the mantle board

Next I glued on a side board to each side at 90 degrees these are shown in Fig 2 d and e, and are as wide (or deep!) as the brick work and marble facing which is 6". These side pieces encase the marble work.

When facing the fire place the sides of boards d. and e. actually flare outwards so two extra blocks of wood are glued on as shown at Fig 3 (right) at letters f. and g. The broken  line indicates the profile I was then able to shape the sides into. See also Illustration No. 2. Look carefully - you can actually see the contrast in grain for these two extra laminates.

I also prepared the mantle shelf that would close in the top so I again marked on a pattern and cut away the waste with a 4" shaping blade. See Illustration No. 3 which shows the shape of the mantle board which is a letter D in shape.

I now needed to create some mouldings as decoration on leading edges, with the timbers being 1 1/4" thick and it being an architectural piece of woodwork, it needed a deeply cut moulding. So I decided to use the Mini-Grinder rather than use a router and moulding bit. The same 'tube' moulding is used throughout and is here shown by sectional drawing and by photographs.

This series of small drawings show the cut progression or steps taken to make this 'tube' moulding. After the step taken at drawing Fig 6 (right) It is possible to complete the profile with Mini-Sanders only particularly if you are not practiced or confident to make light controlled cutting sweeps with the Mini-Blade.

In any event, the Mini-Sanders are vital to remove all rotary tool marks and complete fine line shaping. This means when you have say 40 or 60 grit Mini-Sanders attached they become wood shaping tools in their own right.

Fig 4 (below) shows the first vertical trench cut made full depth with the Mini-Grinder blade.

Fig 5 (below) shows two more trench cuts at angles which slice through and connect with the original cut.

Fig 6 (below) shows another slice cut through the outside corner

Fig 7 (below) shows the effect after you have rounded the corners and smoothed the surfaces.

After fine sanding (well 300 grit!) and removing all dust I applied a proprietary liming solution followed by two coats of Arboroil and when fully dry I rubbed down with fine wire wool and then burnished one coat of Arborwax to a low sheen.

This fire place surround is only one of many ways in which Arbortech shaping tools can be used in an architectural way, other ideas will be shown in the future!

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