[Woodcarver] Relief carving question

[Watson Family]

At 01:59 AM 11/01/2005, you wrote:
>I plan to make a relief carving for my church, and I am concerned about 
>how to hang it.


John I have had sucess with two steel bars 1½" x 3/16" fixed vertical as 
hangers. They need to be about 18" long with multiple screws into the wood 
and project above the top suficient to make a hanging hole. This can then 
be fixed to the wall with a 10g screw. each 10g screw will hold 750lb in 
shear so will carry the weight easily provided they have good penetration 
into the timber or solid brick.
To fix to steel studs you would need to form some kind of hook so it would 
hang in the stud.The problem with steel studs is that the screw tilts and 
is no longer in shear but now in tension.
Keeping in mind the problem of movement that Joe mentioned , if your grain 
runs horozontal then the steel bar does not want to be too long or you will 
cause the timber to crack because the screws will restrict the movement. So 
in this case I would not make them longer than one foot.

All that said you could also fix a board to the wall as a ledger below the 
carving and sit it on that then the top would only need some form of 
retaining to stop it tipping forward.

Peter
Woodcarvings and Wildlife Sculptures
http://www.watsonwoodcarver.com