Interested In An Ebonizing Tutorial?

[avengers63]

I came across an article in this month's Popular Woodworking on how to ebonize any wood, not just certain ones. PLEASE LMK by posting here if y'all want me to write up a tutorial for permanent use here. I tried it on some scrap pieces and it worked like a charm.

[westhemann]

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...=ebonizing+wood

Like the one Brian linked to here?

there is also this which could help

http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/ebonize.htm

[Dakhahn]

I came across an article in this month's Popular Woodworking on how to ebonize any wood, not just certain ones. PLEASE LMK by posting here if y'all want me to write up a tutorial for permanent use here. I tried it on some scrap pieces and it worked like a charm.

I'd like to see that. Any little bit of information helps in my book.

[avengers63]

While this is similar to the one Brian linked to, this is a different process. The tutorial is dieing the wood, which this is not. Traditional ebonizing involves causing a reaction to the tanic acids in the wood. This is a chemical reaction within the wood fibers, not a dye or stain. Tanic acids are not very abundant in some woods, therefore ebonizing will not be as effective. The method I found works on virtually any wood.

[Foggy]

While this is similar to the one Brian linked to, this is a different process. The tutorial is dieing the wood, which this is not. Traditional ebonizing involves causing a reaction to the tanic acids in the wood. This is a chemical reaction within the wood fibers, not a dye or stain. Tanic acids are not very abundant in some woods, therefore ebonizing will not be as effective. The method I found works on virtually any wood.

That would interest me too if you've got the time to do a tutorial on it. As Dakhahn says, any new information is always useful, you never know when a new technique might come in handy

Jim

Edited May 9, 2009 by Foggy

[Woodenspoke]

Since this is a conversion process it requires Tannic acid in the wood, The more the better. This limits this method to mostly oak which is high in Tannic acid. For most of us it will be easier to use dye/ink and foregt about this article unless you want to darken some oak furniture.

[avdekan]

I work at a piano restoration workshop and in the many years i've been there I've seen many black French polished pianos with ebonyzed veneers. they where all sort of "crisp" and crumbled really easily when handled in any way. It might be due to their age (60-120 years), but in my experience this process weakens the wood.

Edited May 9, 2009 by avdekan