Ebonized

Hi All,
 I finished cutting the wood for the ebonizing project from some oak that I got from Hobbies via the Internet. Hobbies is a great shop for those people who make models and that sort of stuff. If you haven't come across them before they are well worth a look.

After cutting out the pieces of wood on my scroll saw, I joined the sides together to form the box and then set about doing the fret work on the lid.

The scroll saw work on the lid was time consuming but extremely therapeutic; a very fine blade and total concentration was required to cut out the fine lines. Then came the moment of truth, I laid the pieces out and then brushed them all over with my ebonizing solution.

For those who may have missed the post with the recipe, here it is again.

Take one Brillo pad and wash out all  the soap. (You could just use a wodge of steel wool instead)
Half fill a jar with white wine vinegar.
Drop the Brillo pad into the jar of liquid, put on the lid and give it a bit of a shake.
Important note: Use a drill to make a few holes in the lid of the jar or make holes in it with a hammer and nail. This is to let the volatile gases, that are produced by the mixture, to escape.
Actually, I can't see why they should be bad but better to be safe that sorry and holes are pretty cheap.

I left the solution in the  garden shed to brew for a couple of weeks and to be honest I wasn't really expecting brilliant results as I brushed the stuff on. However, I shouldn't have worried because here is a picture of the same parts five minutes after the ebonizing solution was applied.

So there you go, the oak is now as black as a coal miners thumb and ready to be finished. The only bit that didn't come out black was a strip along one edge of the base and another along the lid. It is obviously something to do with the wood rather than the solution because they were cut from the same piece of wood. Anyway the strip that didn't come out black, came out a lovely shade of grey and it gives the wood a bit a character.

The next stage is to glue the base on and then do the inlay work on the lid. I am looking forward to that and, will hopefully, be able to show you the finished article in the near future