It’s time to talk finials! I have TWO finial questions so here we go. You might ask, “What’s a finial?” A good and obscure crossword and Scrabble term, Denninger, maker of weather vanes and finials says “According to The American College Dictionary: fin'-ee-el, noun, Architecture. a. an ornamental termination of a pinnacle, gable, etc., usually foliated. b. a vertical termination; a cast, carved, or turned ornament capping another form…A finial is much more than a decoration, it is also a way to weather proof and protect the apex of a tower, turret, cupola or gazebo. Finials have been an integral part of many architectural styles including all the Victorian-era styles.” The Denninger folks continue to characterize finials as “delightful adornments” describing one of their finial designs as “a bouquet high on a roof.”
(Denninger consists of Al Denninger, blacksmith since 1974, wife Beth, and dog Radar.)
Left: A basic ball and point finial. Right: Denninger’s roof bouquet.
These are two Denninger Weather Vanes & Finials finials. (Denninger fabricates these from copper with brass accents and they are not cheap. But, if our sheet metal finials lasted a hundred years, these should last indefinitely. Something I noticed about these finials in contrast to ours is that Denninger’s cap essentially has no thickness whereas ours are very three-dimensional. Seems fixable.)
Our houses’ historic finials were generally sheet metal, as is a lot of the trim along our rooflines and even some cornices. The sheet metal was relatively light gauge, thin. Water gets into sheet metal elements and they rust out from the inside. A walk looking at rooflines (with a friend to keep you from walking into trees) will reveal an amazing collection of sculpture. Because so many of our houses are in groups you can also, sadly, often see where various bits of roof top ornament has been amputated or lost to rust.
Finially Frustrated
Q. I really enjoy your column. I usually tear it out and save it for reference because sooner or later I, or someone I know, will have one of the problems you discuss. But now it's my turn. Can you recommend someone who can replace the finial at the top of my turret? It leaks. For years I have had a drip whenever it rained. I had my flat roof replaced, then the turret underlining replaced and slate, but still the drip. Roofer after roofer could not find the leak so I figured it out myself by process of elimination. I was surprised that roofers did not know how to conduct a leak test so I did one of my own. Each time it rained I put a tarp-like piece over a different part of the turret. I finally put a cover over the very top to see what happened and sure enough the leak stopped. So even though the roofers had painted the finial, there must be some pinhole leak causing the drip that paint can't fix.
Should I have them take off the old finial and pour some lead into the underside of it to save the original? Or is there a way to coat the original with some kind of hole clogging chemical? Or is my only choice to have a new one made? The shape of the finial is of a propped up ball with some leaves around the bottom.
Please remind your readers to keep these unique pieces painted because I believe it will be expensive to recreate and then install.
Who does this sort of customized sheet metal locally?
Finially Frustrated
A. What an excellent letter! (And not just because you began by praising me…)
Here’s why it is so good:
- You obviously know your roof and have been doing the right things (new slate on the turret: you go Ms. Preservationist!) You know the term ‘finial.
- You got hands-on and involved with your problem rather than just slopping black roofing tar around (the too-common solution). You said “I was surprised that roofers did not know how to conduct a leak test so I did one of my own.” I think reputable roofers do know how to test for leaks. The problem is time. Our old houses tend to have fussy little problems that take way more time than most of us are willing to pay someone else to spend, with no guarantees.
- Your spot-on reminder to readers to keep their finials painted.
You are a fine example to us all of good problem solving.
My advice about where to go from here:
More investigation.
Get your roofer to remove the finial very carefully. Hold it up to the light to look for holes. We can hope this will show you the next step. If the finial is mostly rusted away, you may be forced to replicate it. Or, you may be able to get your roofer (one used to working in metal) to solder open joints back together. The roofer who installed the metal roof on our addition didn’t bat an eye at soldering together the gargoyle we bought from W. F. Norman. None of the molded pieces was more than a half an inch thick but it all went together into a very three-d gargoyle.
Historic sheet metal elements on our houses can often be repaired using auto body materials and techniques to strengthen and fill in missing bits.
The lead idea is interesting and seems like it could work. Ask your roofer.
Where to find customized sheet metal work: I say try Local 100 of the Sheet Metal Workers International. You can find a listing on their web site of sheet metal contractors who do roof and architectural ornament work. A few years ago the Building Museum had a gigantic sheet metal object designed by Frank Gehry fabricated by Union Sheet Metal guys who are trained to snip and solder non-standard shapes. It seems that you should be able to find someone to replicate your existing one if it comes to that.
In the Finial Market
Q. I am prepared to purchase a replacement finial for my roof (square turret with original slate roof). The only part of the original left is the base (square; 16.5" on a side). After having walked and driven around the area, looking at houses of the same era as ours, our best guess for the ornamental part is a plain but stately "ball and spike" in copper. As the base is 16.5” on a side and approximately 6" in height, I am allowing for a total height including base to be around 24".
The style of our house has been called "Federal", but that is not what I would call it. In fact, I do not think of it as any particular style, a simple corner lot house built in 1910 (and not in the Historic District, but I do want to try to be as authentic as I can afford).
What do you think?
In the Finial Market
A. First, an aside about house style. Never has a Federal style building had a turret or finial. And 1910 is rather outside the time when the Federal style was popular (i.e. the first couple of decades of the new republic, 1780-1825). And, since the Federal style never enjoyed a revival, it couldn’t be a Federal Revival style. While the Georgian style experienced nearly continuous revivals from the time it went out of fashion, Georgian/Colonial Revival buildings also NEVER had turret or finials. Bottom line, whoever called your house style “Federal” had no idea what they were talking about and you are completely correct in doubting that identification. What your house may be is what I think of as stripped-down Renaissance Revival, lineal descendent of the Italian styles.
Anyway. About your finial.
Gauging size at the rooftop is very hard. Distance and perspective make things look much smaller than you think they are. In reality, some things, like the cornices at the tops of three story Italian houses can be astonishingly tall. Perhaps the easiest way to get an idea of an appropriate size for a new finial (short of mocking one up and clambering up there or making a to-scale drawing of the house) is to take a few digital pictures of your overall house, print them out, sketch on different sized finials until you have one that looks right and then figure out how big it is from clues like the remaining base, whose size you know.
Finding the actual finial:
Denninger Weather Vanes & Finials makes ball and point finials, in copper (see illustration), that are pretty pricey.
You might also try W.F. Norman, founded in 1898, and still making all kinds of sheet metal products.
The W. F. Norman Corporation produces a comprehensive line of exterior sheet metal ornaments originally produced by the Miller & Doing Co. founded in Brooklyn, NY in 1892. Over 1300 catalog items are available in zinc, copper or brass.
Our unique manufacturing process gives us the ability to reproduce your original stamping or spinning. Send us a sample, photo or drawing for a price quote.
To receive our 84 page catalog, write to us at ornaments@wfnorman.com
Included among W.F. Norman’s 1300 item product line of stamped metal ornaments are crestings, crockets, and pinnacles.
And thank you. Nancy Metzger, Chair, Historic Preservation Committee, Capitol Hill Restoration Society and I applaud your desire to do the right thing by your house, whether in the Historic District or not. Don’t forget to get a building permit.
Here’s a very small catalog of some Capitol Hill finials.
Lazy slug that I am, I walked no more than 200 feet from my front door to photograph this collection of finials. The variety and whimsy among even this tiny sample is additional proof, as if we needed it, of the Victorian love of ornament.
Some of these pictures illustrate what happens when finials are not painted (and please PAINT. Do not allow anyone to slop black asphaltic coatings on ANY of your metal roof elements or your metal roof.) As anyone knows who has tried to restore or replicate missing or toast historic elements, that’s a lot harder than maintaining in the first place.
A number of these finials could use a coat of paint.
Deteriorated Finials
This hexagonal tower roof has lost all the crispness of slate, having been re-roofed with light colored asphalt shingles. Adding insult to injury the finial has either been butchered or crudely replaced. Note the flatness of the cap to the roof surface in regrettable contrast to its neighboring finials with their robustly three dimensional caps.
This finial is above a slate roof that needs work (note where a shingle has fallen out) and looks like the metal has been folded down into the base.
View of three different finials on three adjacent buildings contributing to a lively skyline.
Variants of ball finials on a house with decorative sheet metal chimney caps beyond.
One of our favorite catalogs in the office (telling way too much about us) is our SMACNA (Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association) catalog. We love the fact that it is printed in metallic ink (metal, right?), that the drawings are lovely (both wildly details as well as in the style of eighty years ago), and of course the content. Of course they would have detailed instructions about how to fabricate finials. Unfortunately, they only describe ball finials.
Examples of W.F. Norman finials. These are available in copper or “zinc” and are relatively economical. Not to mention that Norman is a historic company making building parts of historic designs for historic buildings.
Judith Capen, Capitol Hill preservation architect, wishes she had a finial. Or a tower.
Gazebo roofs and finials are a bit tricky to make. The carpenter needs to be patient and resourceful to get around the oddly shaped roof. And yeah, they have to be painted to protect them from the elements, preferably elastomeric paint. Thanks for the article, I've learned more about finials.
Posted by: Rodney Orton | June 01, 2011 at 11:31 AM