First Time Ebonite Turner

[X-crAFt custom ink]

Hello All,
I hope everyone is having a great day, is healthy, safe and happy.
Just the other week I bought a couple materials from a fellow maker, and I had bought a piece of ebonite.

I have a number of questions about this because I have never seen Ebonite before this point In real life.
As some background about how I turn, I use carbide tools usually NR on the circle cutters.

The first thing I am wondering is what type of ebonite I have. I will try to get a picture of it attached below, but I bought what I thought was a black piece of German Ebonite. I have talked to my mentor and he believes it is Japanese. My second question is the rod looks almost brown, dusty and very rough. Will it come out black in the end?
I was also curious about how it turns? what is is most similar to material wise? How does it Drill? How does it sand and polish? What method of sanding would people recommend?
Just overall looking for general advice about the material in general. I am looking for any tips, tricks or advice anyone has.

Open Discussion thread

Have a great rest of your day!
-Alex

Sorry for the Blurred out part of the image. WOrking on some secret projects.

 

[duncsuss]

The brown-ish outer layer is common with unpolished black ebonite, nothing unusual about that.

There are sometimes differences between ebonite from Germany and Japan - but there can also be differences between the two German manufacturers that I know of. German and Japanese are both excellent product. I have some Indian-made that I haven't turned yet (it's not solid black though, it has colour swirls). I also have some unspecified origin square black rod which is terrible - has tiny pin holes throughout and looks horrible when turned & polished. It was cheap, and I fell into the trap.

The major differences I'm aware of is that Japanese tends to be slightly softer and smoother to turn, and requires less buffing to reach a shiny jet black finish. (Downside - it's softer, so there's a possibility the finish will need to be attended to sooner.)

It turns beautifully with gouges, chisels and scrapers (carbide tools are scrapers). It also takes threads beautifully. I seldom use kits, and I've never made a kit pen using ebonite, but I have used brass tubes to add structural integrity to crumbly materials (like Fordite and some burls) and glued ebonite plugs into the ends of the tubes without a problem using regular two-part epoxy. (I normally use Dev-Con or West Systems, regular not 5-minute.)

I wet-sand as it reduces the dust flying around and keeps the paper from loading up as fast.

In my experience, you cannot get ebonite to shine properly unless you buff it after sanding, no matter how fine a grit you sand to it will always look better buffed with white diamond, blue compound, and Caswell Plas-glo.

Hope this helps - enjoy the burnt tire smell as you turn it

 

[Jarod888]

Ebonite is essentially hard rubber. It turns well and finishes well also. Using carbite it peals in Long ribbons, so be prepared to stop the lathe and remove them often. Drilling is easy, take your time and keep the heat down. Water is a great cooling medium, both for drilling and sanding.

Be prepared for the smell. Burning tires is pretty much exactly what it reminds me of. Even with a mask, you'll smell it. It also leaves a fine powder, especially with carbide. It stains your fingers, so you'll have to wash with soap and water to remove it.