Toall, I I have made a veneer checkerboard using Macassar ebony and birdseye maple surrounded by cherry. All veneer on mdf substrate, glued down with West System epoxy, with solid border of curly maple. My favorite finish for table tops is three coats of Minwax semi-gloss poly. I get good reliable results. However the ebony is giving me a real hard time. Is anyone aware of oils in this wood that prevent the finish from drying. After failing with the poly, I tried sealing with shellac which failed also. I then attempted to seal it with epoxy, failing again. This goes beyond just fisheyes and the finish(and the epoxy) gets repelled and will not cooperate. Any suggestions?
barry walker
Edited 12/17/2007 6:04 pm ET by brrqvw
Replies
The thing I'd try first is to thoroughly wipe the surfaces of the ebony with a fast evaporating solvent such as acetone or lacquer thinner and apply finish as soon as it evaporates and before oils can reimerge. I think a dewaxed shellac might be the best finish to try.
Steve,
Thanks for the response. I had to ship this thing to Denver and couldn't play with it any longer. What I did was carefully scrape just the ebony and waxed over the entire top. The ebony was holding the finish on the brown stripes but not on the black. Once I had the ebony uniform it looked good with the wax. I made the deadline and I am one happy camper right now. For the record I did try wiping with acetone and it still didn't work. I think the key is to put very thin coats and let each one dry for at least one week(time that I just didn't have). I will not be deterred from using the ebony because of this problem as it is a really beautiful wood.
barry
barry,
Every once in a while, you can run into a sample of wood that just drives you nuts regarding shedding a finish. I have never tried anything other than lacquer on ebony, and have never had a problem.
On the other hand, one doesn't really get to finish a whole lot of ebony, and I may have just been lucky.
I once had a piece of cocobolo that would take no finish. Until then, lacquer had always worked.
Maybe there's a good reason that ebony bridges on guitars don't get a finish coat. I've sanded ebony right up through 1200 grit and 4-0 steel wool and then polishing compound and "swirl remover" and it looked every bit as polished as the surrounding lacquered wood which had a mirror finish after the swirl remover step.
Rich
Rich,
If I were to use ebony for anything that was seperated from the rest of the piece like a bridge on a guitar, then I would suggest just polishing it like you said. My problem was that being a checkerboard I had to finish the maple also. These challenges are what makes woodworking so rewarding. I've been at this for quite awhile now and there is always more to learn. Thanks for the advice.
brrqvw,I wasn't suggesting that polishing bare ebony was the answer to your problem, I was just describing some experiences with ebony and musing whether the fact that ebony guitar bridges are not finished is an indication that ebony resists finishing.Rich
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