Historical Question about Ebony

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Peruna1998

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To all you knife history gurus out there, is there any historical reason as to why ebony was commonly used as a scale material in knife production? It would not seem to me that ebony is all that common of a wood, yet looking at old knives it seems fairly common in usage and I am curious as whether there was any specific reason.

Anyone know why?

Thanks.
 
It wears like iron.
One of the more durable and longlasting woods out there.
 
As Comoha said, because it is very tough. You can't get much harder or denser than ebony. It also looks fantastic. Cocobolo was also very common "back in the day" for the same reasons.
 
True ebony, when properly air dried and seasoned for a number of years, is amazingly hard, strong, and stable - and quite wear resistant.

Knife makers have a very long history of using exotic materials from all over the world - it's kinda what they do. Sheffield makers loved sambar stag from India - dyed with logwood dyes from South America -- now remember that this was in the 1800s. They went halfway around the world for the antlers, then a third of the way around the world in the other direction for the dyestuffs. Buffalo horn came from the Orient. The old Sheffield makers also used cocobolo, rosewood, and Suriname snakewood (usually called letterwood back then) -- all from South or Central America. Ivory was no picnic to get a good supply of either back then -- they called it deepest darkest Africa for a reason.

Heck, today Case uses the shin bones from a particular breed of cattle in Argentina for its scales -- and as far as I know, Case has done this ever since they opened their doors way back when.

Interestingly, a lot of the materials that came to be "standards" for knife scales were long time favorites of luthiers too.
 
zerogee said:
True ebony, when properly air dried and seasoned for a number of years, is amazingly hard, strong, and stable - and quite wear resistant.

Knife makers have a very long history of using exotic materials from all over the world - it's kinda what they do. Sheffield makers loved sambar stag from India - dyed with logwood dyes from South America -- now remember that this was in the 1800s. They went halfway around the world for the antlers, then a third of the way around the world in the other direction for the dyestuffs. Buffalo horn came from the Orient. The old Sheffield makers also used cocobolo, rosewood, and Suriname snakewood (usually called letterwood back then) -- all from South or Central America. Ivory was no picnic to get a good supply of either back then -- they called it deepest darkest Africa for a reason.

Heck, today Case uses the shin bones from a particular breed of cattle in Argentina for its scales -- and as far as I know, Case has done this ever since they opened their doors way back when.

Interestingly, a lot of the materials that came to be "standards" for knife scales were long time favorites of luthiers too.
Click to expand...

AND...The use of ebony goes back to at least the time of the pharoahs. http://www.woodmagazine.com/materials-guide/lumber/wood-species-2/ebony/
 
zerogee said:
True ebony, when properly air dried and seasoned for a number of years, is amazingly hard, strong, and stable - and quite wear resistant.

Interestingly, a lot of the materials that came to be "standards" for knife scales were long time favorites of luthiers too.
Click to expand...

Yes, ebony has long been a cherished feature of stringed instruments. so has rosewood, Brazilian rosewood in particular. The Brazilian rosewood is hard, stable and beautiful, and is highly sought after. Luthiers have also prized other woods for their unique qualities, like fine spruce and figured maple. Unfortunately, some kinds of ebony and Brazilian rosewood are endangered now, and cannot be harvested any longer.
 
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Ebony works fairly easily, is fine grained, has uniform color, handles oils well, has minimum shrinkage, and wears well. What's not to like.
 
zerogee said:
True ebony, when properly air dried and seasoned for a number of years, is amazingly hard, strong, and stable - and quite wear resistant.

Knife makers have a very long history of using exotic materials from all over the world - it's kinda what they do. Sheffield makers loved sambar stag from India - dyed with logwood dyes from South America -- now remember that this was in the 1800s. They went halfway around the world for the antlers, then a third of the way around the world in the other direction for the dyestuffs. Buffalo horn came from the Orient. The old Sheffield makers also used cocobolo, rosewood, and Suriname snakewood (usually called letterwood back then) -- all from South or Central America. Ivory was no picnic to get a good supply of either back then -- they called it deepest darkest Africa for a reason.

Heck, today Case uses the shin bones from a particular breed of cattle in Argentina for its scales -- and as far as I know, Case has done this ever since they opened their doors way back when.

Interestingly, a lot of the materials that came to be "standards" for knife scales were long time favorites of luthiers too.
Click to expand...

Intellectually, I knew all this, but I never really thought about it. I mean, I knew about the trade aspect of it. What amazes me though is looking at the old knife catalogs and looking at prices. I understand inflation, but still when you consider the cost of transporting these items, the cost of the finished good was quite reasonable.

So, it all came down to wear resistance. Interesting.
 
Well, wear resistance plus impact resistance -- it doesn't ding or dent easily due to high hardness and density. It also looks pretty and maintains it - it doesn't fade or become dingy with time, especially if carried often so it gets polished in pockets and treated by the oils and moisture from your hands every time you use it.

Being a good, tough, stable, attractive, long lasting material for knife scales - one that can even be used on higher end/fancier knives - especially when hafted thin like the old cutlers did - is not an easy thing for most natural woods to accomplish. It basically takes an ironwood (in the most general sense: wood dense enough to sink in water) that's tough (many ironwoods are brittle) and dimensionally stable whether wet or dry AND is beautiful and maintains that beauty over time.
 
joe-bob said:
Yes, ebony has long been a cherished feature of stringed instruments. so has rosewood, Brazilian rosewood in particular. The Brazilian rosewood is hard, stable and beautiful, and is highly sought after. Luthiers have also prized other woods for their unique qualities, like fine spruce and figured maple. Unfortunately, some kinds of ebony and Brazilian rosewood are endangered now, and cannot be harvested any longer.
Click to expand...

Yup. Go look at some nice guitars and you'll see the same thing. My Gibson SG has a rosewood fretboard. It's had a hard rock and roll life, but no dings in the fretboard. Lot's of ebony used, too. Durable, pretty, not affected much by moisture. Get's prettier with sweat (and beer) on it. And easy to clean.
 
Thanks to all you kind gents for sharing your knowledge.
That was excellent.
 
There are lots of different types of ebony - from African to Macassar ebony. Some are stable and some are prone to cracking. Any exotic wood needs to be carefully dried. Most ebonies come into the country wet and need a long drying time before they are stable. I have some woods out in the garage, and other sticks in the house drying well before I can use them. I figure that it takes about 6 months to a year per inch for air drying in the garage, and at least 3-6 months for thin slabs to dry in the house.
Some ebony is so hard that it takes very sharp tools to work the stuff - and even then it isn't easy. In contrast, I have had no trouble carving Argentine Lignum Vitae with sharp blades.
I have seen and have exotic woods that are kiln dried, but not woods like Ebony.
Luthier and musical instrument supply houses may provide dry ebony, but they are not the sources of woods that I buy.
 
In addition to being hard and durable, ebony does this without any stabilization. We see so many woods being used today after stabilization, but back then they needed wood that would last a long time and look good without stabilization. And they were willing to pay for ebony to be shipped around the world because it fit the bill so well.
 
LKJW said:
Yup. Go look at some nice guitars and you'll see the same thing. My Gibson SG has a rosewood fretboard. It's had a hard rock and roll life, but no dings in the fretboard. Lot's of ebony used, too. Durable, pretty, not affected much by moisture. Get's prettier with sweat (and beer) on it. And easy to clean.
Click to expand...

My G&L S-500 has a gorgeous ebony fretboard on it, and it's as tough as the day is long. :thumbup: Ebony is nice in that the more you use/ abuse it, the nicer it looks.
 
True, it must have always been costly to transport it but Ebony and Cocoa wood were used more commonly in the past due to the fact that there were a lot more forests until recently.

Consider world population growth, figures approx:
1850 1.2 billion
1900 1.6 billion
1950 2.55 billion
2000 6.1 billion

This means a lot less hardwood forests etc:eek:

The qualities of Ebony, as pointed out by others, make it an outstanding material, and, one of the few that seems to get better the more you use it
 
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