DurocShark
Member
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.
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.