"giga" wrote in message
Hi all,

I'm builing a cherry mantle for some friends, the floating type, made to
be
fastened directly to the wall above the fireplace. There are no sides, so
no
support from the floor. It weighs about 25 lbs or so. I had planned to use
French cleats to hang it from the wall, but they just found out from the
builder that the house is built with metal studs, and not wood as we had
expected.
Can you hang that much weight from metal studs, and if so, what sort of
fastening system would be best? There are basically 4 studs along the
length
of the mantle.

BEWA Mantles end up being the resting place of expensive "objects d'art"
(if not for this resident, perhaps for the next) and because of this fact
you may well be doing yourself a favor to "over engineer" ... you do NOT
want any unpleasant call backs from "friends".

What material is the wall? This information is important to an effective
solution.

Self tapping screws can be used into the metal studs, but, depending upon
the wall material, I would also routinely throw in a few molly bolts in
between the studs for the wall half of the French cleat.

As others have mentioned, and depending again upon the wall material, a bit
of construction adhesive would also add to the "belt and suspenders"
approach, which is certainly justified in this particular situation due to
first above.

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www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 3/27/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)