Blackest & Whitest

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Dehn0045

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Joined
Mar 19, 2017
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Gabon ebony is often considered the darkest wood, but this is not uniform, it is based on tree selection. Most of what you will find for sale, especially in pen blank size, will be extremely black (unless specifically marketed as "black and white ebony"). I like this video, it offers some explanation: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=anCGvfsBoFY

Holly is considered the whitest. One thing to recognize, however, is that spalting will discolor the wood very fast. My understanding is that Holly is harvested in the winter and immediately milled and kiln dried. Sometimes it is dried using a vacuum kiln to speed up the drying process to minimize discoloration. Finally, Holly is a relatively small tree, so large lumber is not widely available, but you can find very white pen blank sizes relatively cheap.

I probably could've just typed "ebony/holly", but I figured a little background info might be of interest...
 
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