I have a little gas fireplace I had installed about 6 years ago and I never got around to finishing the surround on it. My wife had commented about how it looks unfinished a few weeks ago so it was go time...
Finding a suitable live edge chunk of maple that would work for this was tough and I had been looking for the right piece for a long time. Found this one at Windsor Plywood and it was perfect.
A good friend of mine came over and did the cutting with his Festool track saw. He is a finishing carpenter and a very good one at that!
I had made the floating mantle bracket from 1 1/4" flat iron and 1/2" cold rolled. Drilled the flat iron and plug welded the pins.
After the back was routered out to accept the bracket and the holes drilled for the pins, the mantle was trial fitted and finished with Diamond Coat waterborne Varithane.
A few blobs of silicone on the back and it was pushed into place. I had to put weight on the one corner while the silicone set up to keep it level.