–SOLD TO RICHARD M from Winter Garden, Florida (FL)–
–10/12/2017. Please do not ad this one to your cart.–
–Please note, this was cut from a 12 foot beam, so we have the remaining mate still available.–

This is a nice hand hewn fireplace mantel beam. It is just kind of a simple, classic hand hewn beam. The coloring is very even, slightly orangy golden color. The fun part of this mantels is the 5 holes that are plugged on the bottom side of the mantel. This beam was originally 1/2 a ladder. Each rung was had carved, tapered to the hole, and nailed into place. The rungs here a nice hard white oak and showed very little wear considering that they were probably over 100 years old.

The hand hewing is simple and clean. My understanding is that for a nicer finish, they often did a couple of passes with different tools. That is, they may have done one pass with a felling ax and then another pass with and adz or broad ax. There is a kind of interesting log building video on Lost Ways in Facebook. (this is not a plug for the book. We’ve never seen it, never read it).

On the end grain (on the photos of the tape measure), you can see growth rings that are uncommonly tight for Red Oak. Assuming this building was build in the late 1800s, this tree could have very well been born in the 1700s. In Wisconsin, that means that American Indians were really the only only human inhabitants of the area. On the East coast, the Revolutionary war had probably just come to a close.

The color on this mantel is all natural. We apply a hardwax oil on the mantel to enrich the color, but we do not add any additional stain.

This mantel beam came from a vintage barn near Southwest Wisconsin — out in the beautiful rolling hills. It is always nice to head out to this part of the country. You still see lots of small family farms with animals still out in the pastures. It is a welcome relief from the industrial farming that we see in our parts.

This beam is priced at $115/LF, 6ft = $690. We can cut this one down and reduce the price by $9.58 per inch, up to a $115 discount. We’ll refinish the ends and nobody will ever know that it was cut again. Shipping runs $65 via FedEx Gnd.

About the mantel tag – This one is a frame of a 1930s cartoon called Gasoline Alley that ran in the local newspaper. Gasoline Alley was first published in 1918 and still runs today. It is the second longest running comic strip series in the United States.