Is Ebony truly black? (This is a "Duh" question)

J

Jumbi

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Mar 12, 1999
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I just saw a picture of a really nice looking knife on ebay. The seller says the handle is ebony but in the 4 pictures provided it looks more brownish, almost cocobolo in color. Is "Ebony" wood truly black or does it show up as brown under strong lighting?:confused:
 
There are many different species of "ebony" some will be almost black while others will have light browns, and tans. It just dependson on the species.

Regards
 
Macassar ebony is the striped wood that you have seen- definitely not black. Gaboon ebony is black, but may have some gray stripes that are often dyed black with a preparation called ebonholzbeize. Solid jet black ebony is getting increasingly rare and pricy.
 
I was reading about ebony, some time ago, and the author said that only the "heart wood" of the ebony tree is solid black. Otherwise the wood is brown with strong bands of darker brown. He said that ebony furniture was very popular during the 19th. century because of the influence of Chinese and Japanese art. Most of the ebony used for furniture started out as a more ecomomical local wood that was "ebonized", ie. bleached until nearly white and then dyed black. The black wood on pianos is, supposedly, still made this way today.
John.
 
From what I know, only the inner most of the ebony "tree" is truly black and very hard.
:)
 
From what I understand, it is only the heartwood of the Gaboon variety of ebony that is black. It may have grey or dark brown stripes as well. The heartwood of Macassar ebony is has dark brown, black and lighter brown stripes.

Gaboon ebony is getting pretty scarce, so it is very expensive.
 
i worked a few pieces on some knives that were black/grey/brown and even greenish striped. also this is one of the most toxic woods to work, the peasants in india that carve all the tourist stuff all die/problems from lung, skin etc. dieases.


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