Notes on ebony

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DurocShark

Member
Joined
Jul 26, 2008
Messages
3,622
Location
Anaheim, CA
I, like many others, have had cracking problems with ebony. So I decided to try a little experiment. I made a Pentel pencil from ebony. I wasn't gentle while drilling. I did it on the lathe at 2000rpm, only backing off when I saw smoke or oil coming out of the hole.

I allowed it to cool to room temperature and turned it. After sanding to 400 I applied several coats of rattlebomb lacquer. This was last Saturday. As of last night not a single crack to be found. I was so excited I decided to try my new buffing system on it. Apparently I need to put more lacquer on. Heh. So no pics.

Anyway, I am wondering if the rigidity of the tubes in a typical pen are why ebony has such a poor rep. When the wood is allowed to move as it will there's no problem. I know this is very unscientific, but I really abused the blank. It should have shattered as soon as the skew was pointed at it, let alone go a few days.

I'll continue to watch it. I'll need to wipe it down with something to remove the wax so I can refiniah it. That should make it even more delicate.
 

Dvoigt

Member
Joined
Dec 5, 2008
Messages
274
Location
Fraser, MI
Maybe it is just me but if I find a pen (any type of wood) does crack on me, 50% of cracking on any wood about a week after I have already assembled the pen. 49.9% immediately after assembly, and 0.1% before assembly.
 
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