Many of my customers have never understood the difference between a barley twist and a rope twisted turning. And though I try to explain it over the phone, I’m certain it is not well understood. “A rope twist”, I tell them, “looks like rope.” A barley twist, on the other hand, has an interior radius that differentiates it from a rope twist. This usually does not work. And so a picture is indeed worth a thousand words. Or this case – two pictures:
barley twist
rope twist
Some time back I had a request form a customer to add an ivory “button” to a newel cap I was making for his stairway newel. Of course I couldn’t use ivory and was unsure of what to use. I had read about “vegetable” ivory or tagua nuts from South America that had a similar look and feel to ivory. These proved to be not so easy to find. Most of the tagua nuts were already carved into someting or other before they arrived in the US. The larger nuts (which is what I needed) were even harder to find. So in the end I decided to use Corian. Corian is what the DuPont Corp. developed for solid surface kitchen counters years ago. I found a small piece locally at a solid surface counter company. I think the final product turned out nicely.
By the way, apparently it was traditional in some area of the country to add an ivory piece to your newel cap when the mortgage on the house was paid off. If you have heard of this from your neck of the woods I’d love to hear from you.
corian topped newel cap
