"giga" wrote:



I should have elaborated a bit...

The wall is garden variety drywall.
The mantle itself is 8" deep and about 4" thick. It's done with a
torsion box, so it's not solid cherry, but it sure ain't balsa wood.
It's the cantilever force I'm concerned about. That's a lot of
weight hanging as far as 8" out from the wall, with only 4" of
surface area against it. I'm not sure that adhesive would be much of
an aid in this case. The cleat itself is Lee Valley's aluminium
Z-clips two sections of 2' each. It's not very wide, but I reckon I
could drill pairs of holes instead of singles in each location, but
maybe not #14.

I'd forget the Lee Valley stuff and build an exposed cleat at least 8"
high with a reverse 45 on top which then gets glued to the dry wall.

Using a large cleat will spread the load.

Probably require some time back on the drawing board, but worth it.

Lew