bensoelberg
Member
A lady who did some laser work for me last Christmas called and asked if I would make some pens for her out of some special wood that she had purchased. She wants 3 cigars and 2 slimlines. The wood is macassar ebony. She brought me the entire plank, which is 12" x 6" x 1.5" and said that I could keep all of the wood that I don't use. Now with all of the recent talk about how difficult ebony is to finish and how likely it is to crack, I'm somewhat terrified. My original plan was to put a CA finish on it, and I was definitely going to thoroughly wipe down the blanks with acetone to remove the oils from the surface, then quickly lay down 3-4 coats of thin CA to seal the blank. Now I think I should probably drill out the blanks with slightly smaller drill and flood the hole with thin CA as well as per the suggestion in another thread. The wood has been sitting in my shop for about a month, and is fully acclimated to that environment, but I haven't cut it into blanks yet, because I just got my bandsaw working this morning. I am mostly scared about the cracking. I'm wondering if cross cutting the blanks would be a good idea because cracks usually follow grain lines so any cracking wouldn't travel the entire length of the pen. Does that make sense? Here is the wood, with a Jr. Gent for reference.