On Nov 24, 12:42*pm, Joe wrote:
On Nov 23, 9:23*pm, aemeijers wrote:

snip

**If a traditional fireplace, a DEEP

hole (at least 1/3 as deep as the part sticking out), and rebar epoxied
into the hole, and allowed to cure before pushing the mantel over it.
snip

Rather than rebar, epoxy some stainless steel or even zinc plated
threaded rod into a hole in the brick. The threads should offer a lot
of surface area for bonding and no nasty mill scale to weaken the
bond.
Drilling into mortar as mentioned above is poor practice at best due
the difference in strength of the materials, i.e., the support is
dependent on the bond of the mortar to the brick, an iffy situation.
Another alternative I have used for mounting electrical service panels
was drilling relatively good sized holes for an oak dowels and
epoxying those in place for the mounting screws. The electrical
inspector seemed to like that approach a lot. On one job we mounted a
painted plywood panel to the old brick foundation wall first with
epoxied in dowels and the service panel was then installed.
Some combination of these techniques should produce a very stout
mounting for the mantle.

Joe

Joe

Based on mounting heavy ornamental wrought iron burglar bars, I would
have to disagree about drilling into the mortar.

I visited my "handy work" several years later, and they are still
hanging fine.

To use a modified quote from Star Wars,

"Those Cobra wall anchors were impressive."

Andy