What wood is this?

[dadiOH]

Except, of course in rift sawn oak. Which is (IMO) what this is...rift sawn white oak.

[dadiOH]

No, it is not proof of any such thing. See previous reply above.

[Doug Miller]

Hellooooo.... it's a *round* object, which exposes *all* aspects of the grain. Rift-sawn grain is visible at the left of the photo -- but look at the right side of the photo, where the grain is perfectly vertical, perfectly quartersawn. If it were white oak, or any other kind of oak, there would be rays visible there.

There aren't. Therefore, that is *not* oak.

You're not the first person to mistake ash for oak, and you won't be the last, either -- but mistake it you did.

[Doug Miller]

It absolutely is. There is perfectly vertical quartersawn grain visible at the right of the photo -- grain which would plainly display ray flake if it were oak. It doesn't. That isn't oak.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

After a review and careful consideration, I'm changing my mind. Ash seems to be very likely.

[Steve Manes]

Hey, fellow Brooklyn row house owner!

It looks like white oak to me, which is pretty ubiquitous in Brooklyn row houses built around this time. My house was built between 1901 and 1906, depending on what reference source you use, and the two lumber types used here were white oak and poplar.

White oak isn't easy to come by in the yards around here but Rosenzweig in the Bronx has it. Because this wood was typically stained dark you could probably use red oak without anyone being the wiser.

[avid_hiker]

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.

Dean

[Steve Manes]

You could be right. From my research, most of the trim work for the old Brooklyn row houses built during this period was either cut on site or in a large mill located in Sunset Park (as the lore goes). The newel cap might have been an outsource.

But it's hard to tell with this old woodwork. Once you strip this stuff and get rid of a century's worth of varnish, dye, dings and discolorations it often looks like a completely different piece of wood. The best way for me to tell is also destructive. When you cut or plane it, old white oak has a very distinctive, slightly vomit-like smell to it.

-------------------------------------------------- Steve Manes, Brooklyn, NY

[avid_hiker]

am by no means no expert here.

[Doug Miller]

Definitely not Douglas fir, or any other softwood.

[Doug Miller]

Absolutely not. Oak has a distinctive ray-flake figure visible in its quartersawn surfaces. This figure is completely absent in the photograph. The wood in the photograph is ash, not oak.

Pardon me if I'm a bit skeptical, after seeing you mis-identify the photo as white oak. Mistaking ash for oak is easy to do; ash was often used as a substitute for oak in medium-priced furniture because (a) it's cheaper, and (b) most people can't tell the difference, especially after it's stained.

And if he uses ash, he'll have an exact match -- because that's what it is.

[Doug Miller]

Not different enough to obscure the difference between ash and oak. The ray-flake figure in quartersawn oak is made even *more* distinctive by staining, because the flakes don't absorb stain well at all. If this piece were oak, the ray-flakes would be very obvious. They aren't visible at all; ergo, the piece is not oak. It's ash.

Again, pardon me if I question your wood identification. *Red* oak has a faintly vomit- or urine-like odor to it. *White* oak smells like toast and vanilla.

[avid_hiker]

Western Red Cedar possibly if not the Douglas Fir? What ya think?

[Steve Manes]

I've cut, planed and milled probably a thousand board feet of red oak just in this house renovation. I've recycled a couple of hundred feet of the original white oak as well. I know what red oak smells like and I know what white oak smells like.

-------------------------------------------------- Steve Manes, Brooklyn, NY

[Norminn]

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 :o) Ash used more in furniture?

[Doug Miller]

The OP's photo doesn't even resemble any type of cedar or fir. It is

*unquestionably* a hardwood, and it's almost certainly ash specifically.

[Doug Miller]

Obviously we perceive smells very differently.

[Norminn]

clipped

Not so. Age, patina, and the old finish will be hard to match.

[Goedjn]

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).

[Norminn]

clipped

This is getting funny. I don't know what red oak smells like, but the other two are very, very familiar and not at all alike! Jeesh!