I will be replacing our stairs soon and began looking at costs for the varying components. The craftsman style newel posts are quite expensive if manufactured with anything besides red oak. Therefore, I will be making four newel posts out of rift sawn white oak. There are two questions. First, which style of newel is stronger the box newel which is mounted on a block bolted into the tread or rake or a solid newel attached with post fastener system? What are the advantages or disadvantages?
The second question concerns the cap of the newel post. It is going to be a very low angle pyramid similar to the “pyramid cap” in the image below. If made from flat stock 2 sides would be face grain and two would expose some end grain. What is the best way to create a cap that will stain up uniform? Would gluing four triangles together to form a square and running them through a table saw with a tenoning jig makes sense?
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