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- Dec 2, 2005
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OK, here are some pictures to illustrate. First, in rosewoods (dalbergia), the color stripes follow the growth rings. But in ebonies (diospyros), the color stripes are independent of the growth rings. In most pieces of ebony, it is difficult to see the growth rings because the wood is dark, but here is a block of macassar that is light enough to see that the color stripes cut across the growth rings:
And some Malaysian Blackwood and Black & White ebony
It is common to have ebony with small pores, here are some examples of macassar (forgive the presence of some old Buck knives in this thread!)
A similar ebony is Kamagong (Philippine ebony), which is much finer grained than macassar, here are a couple pieces (it is illegal to export the raw wood from the Philippines, but you can buy finished articles, such as jewelry boxes, for very little money there and then use the wood for your own project:
I like kamagong better than macassar because most of it has no pores, it polishes up to a beautiful smooth surface.
For the black ebony, it is normally Gabon ebony, and occasionally East Indian ebony or Madagascar ebony. Normally they are uniform black. It is common to see gabon ebony with the same pore structure visible in the macassar ebony above, and I have a few pieces that have larger pores more like dalbergia. It is rare to find Gabon ebony with no pores, but I got a couple blocks a long time ago with fabulous wood, I had this Queen rehandled with that wood:
And Madagascar ebony can be found like that too, an example is this Marjacq (again, forgive the non-lambsfoot content):
A lot of the cocobolo out there will turn very dark over time and is often confused with ebony. It is not hard to spot once you know what to look for, with the grain structure and pores, and also because old pocketworn cocobolo has more of a waxy look while ebony will usually exhibit a polished look that is different from cocobolo. Also, if you hold it in direct sunlight and see reddish highlights, it is a dalbergia (cocobolo or African blackwood). I have yet to see a diospyros sample that had a reddish overtone in direct sunlight. If a diospyros has lighter portions, it will be brown or gray in appearance.
Now, back to the knife in question. The color and grain look like ebony. I don't know what ebony species is used by Wright, but it is probably Gabon, but possibly East Indian. Historically, when Gabon ebony was cut they would only take the prime uniform black wood and discard the parts that had stripes. As the availability of Gabon ebony has declined in recent years, more of the striped wood is making it to the market.
I should probably close this with a picture of an appropriate lambsfoot. The mark side is very fine grained with no pores; the pile side has pores like the macassar ebony shown above.
Lambertiana, many thanks for going to the trouble of putting together that extremely informative and educational post, some beautiful examples included too
sooooo who else got their sheath?
it can begin now
Those look fantastic together my friend
