On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 18:23:28 GMT, Norminn
wrote:

avid_hiker wrote:
On Feb 14, 3:02 pm, Don Wiss wrote:

I have an 1891 row house in Brooklyn. One of my newel post finials is
missing. But neighbors with identical houses still have theirs. So a friend
of mine that is adept with a lathe has offered to make me a new one. We
have photographed and measured it. But what is the wood? A fellow that I
once was going to hire to make it said white oak. Then my friend thought it
was Douglas fir. But a friend of his that comes from Eastern Canada says it
is definitely yellow pine, and pointed out several features that are
inconsistent with Douglas fir. Now the only pine in my house is the floors.
And the wainscoting near the finial is oak. My friend says oak is easier to
turn. What do you guys think it is? [Warning, this was not reduced in size,
so it is 441MB.]

http://donwiss.com/finial.jpg

Don www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).


Here is a wood grain site with photos........it may help you out a
bit. It takes a bit for all the wood images to appear....but all
eventually will. cheers.

http://www.cnr.vt.edu/DENDRO/dendrology/woodgrain.cfm

Dean



Just for the sake of argument, I don't believe either oak or ash would
ALWAYS appear completely distinctively. I'm familiar with the look of
oak, but not the terminology. Rays or flakes? I dunno. Oak is more
open grained, as I understand, and the photo makes the wood look open
grained. Grain is so close together, I don't see how it would be
determined other figures should or should not appear? All the old homes
I've seen that had "oak" woodwork may well have had ash (or something
else), but never seen one with wood identified as ash ) Ash used more
in furniture?



I'm still trying to figure out why OP is trying to make the
finial match the finial in his neighbor's house,
instead of making it match the post, the railing,
or the finial at the other end (if there is one).