I built a screen for our fireplace recently, and am fairly happy with the result. The screen is for times when we’re not using the fireplace, since it looks dirty, and when the wind gusts, sometimes the damper blows open, and then we get a cold wind into the living room. This also greatly reduces the noise from wind blowing across the top of the chimney.
Two years ago, we got the front of our fireplace painted by a local artist. It’s a very nice result, but especially with that fancy paint-job, we wanted something that would look better than the fire-stained firebox.
The screen has a few features that are unique.
The hearth sits a couple inches above the floor of the firebox, as is typical. This provides a lip which I use to keep the bottom of the screen from sliding forward.
I cut a lip and curved edges on a board to sit on the lip of the hearth, and then built the frame up from there.
The frame is walnut, and around the back edges of it, I’ve put a three-layer-thick roll of felt, which can lean against the painted front of the fireplace without damaging it. The felt is simply stapled in place, first the innermost layer, then the entire roll is stapled right next to the MDF backer, which should prevent the staples from damaging the paint on the fireplace.
The center of the frame is filled with a piece of MDF, which gave me a support for the juniper “rays” and the citrus-wood “sun.” They are simply glued to the MDF backer.
The juniper rays are all of different thicknesses. Rather than mill them all down to the same thickness, I intentionally left some of them thick so I would have more visual interest in the surface of the screen. The rays are all thinned down to roughly a quarter inch where the central sun sits, glued onto the rays.
And finally, the completed screen wanted to tip forward due to the distribution of weight in it and the uneven hearth, so I added a couple feet to the front, which I glued in place only after everything else was completed, adjusting the angle of the feet to hold the top of the screen tight against the fireplace.
The finish is tung oil, followed by a few coats of shellac (between four and nine, depending on which part of the screen), followed by three-five coats of Tried and True Varnish Oil. I thought about using a more traditional varnish, but the difficulty of keeping that dust-free in my shop convinced me to use the slower, but more friendly oil varnish.
That’s all. It was about a month from cutting the first frame section to setting the completed screen in place on the hearth, but I received the juniper from a friend almost three years ago, and have been thinking and sketching designs for most of the time since then.
The faux painting of the fireplace has a nice soft look, kinda like a limestone slab. I spent some time doing similar stuff in a few small rooms, definitely takes an "eye".
And thanks to Sycamoray for the juniper. I had the initial idea for this almost three years ago and mentioned I wanted some juniper to build it, and he came through with some Rocky Mountain Juniper, which comes in bigger pieces, so I didn’t have to try to make it out of little branches from the junipers in our yard.
Very nice work Dave, the design and wood selection for this screen complements the fireplace nicely. I noticed the rosette top center, did you turn that? I need to make a couple of these for my grandson's bookcase project, never tried that prior. Any tips?
Tom, the rosette top center was turned. I did a flat faceplate turning for it. Get the tools good and sharp, since you’ll be hitting end grain part of the way around. I put a pine scrap onto the faceplate, then yellow glued a piece of paper to the pine and glued the walnut for the rosette to the paper. After turning, I used a chisel to pop the walnut off, and then decided it was too thick, so I hand-resawed it from the 5/8” I’d turned it at to about 5/16” thick.
I had a 1/4 thick MDF template I checked the rosette against as I was turning it, but I’m pretty horrible at turning the same shape twice, even with a template to match, so you may or may not need such a training aid.
If I had to make a couple, I’d turn them. If it was a dozen, I’d buy a rosette bit from Infinity Tools, put it in a chuck in the tailstock and use the lathe like an oversized drill press. I haven’t decided just how many it would take to qualify for the new tool purchase, but it’ll be a lot easier to make them all match that way. Plus, new tool!
Thanks! I’m glad I waited until after the fireplace painting was done. That was a… process, and while we had a pretty good idea of the colors, the woman working on it was artistic enough that we weren’t sure what it would look like until one day she proclaimed that she was done.
Tom, the rosette happened after I botched the joint on the top, and it ended up being a butt joint, rather than a half-lap. It’s also a critical piece of reinforcement.
Uh, thanks, Jim. Pretty sure it won’t ever be on when there’s a fire. For that matter, we have two fireplaces, and haven’t ever lit a fire in either. When I was a kid, we heated our huge farmhouse with wood. Cut, split and burned 14-16 full cords every winter, and had to haul all the ashes up from the basement and out to the woods, too. I’m pretty much done with burning wood for heat.
