Black Blackwood Bridge....

[woodrat]

Hi All....just doing a little experiment so not really a tute so that is why I put it here. I am making a Blackwood and Red spruce OM and plan to do ebony binding and fingerboard and headplate but dont want to put an ebony bridge on because of the weight of it. So I thought that I would have a go at ebonizing one in some nice medium density blackwood that I have that should be very suitable. So I made the bridge and weighed it and it comes in at 22g compared to an ebony one that I came off another instrument which tipped the scales at 38g...so a dramatic difference in the weight of the two.
So I got a large jar to put some white vinegar into and some steel wool to provide the iron and as well filled a smaller jar with water to put in to take up some of the volume so that I do not use so much vinegar. Anyway the pictures tell the story....I weighted the bridge with some screws through the pinholes to keep it below the waterline and put it in....the picture of the black bridge is after about 5 days....

BTW...after 5 days it weighs 28g so it has picked up between 20 and 25% of its weight in water (presuming vinegar is mostly water??) so I will need to dry it quite slowly so that it does not crack...

John

[Jeremy D]

Wow,

This is timely I have been thinking about how to go about this recently. I would love to see some pics after it has fully dried.

Is blackwood specifically good for this because of the tannins? I had all sorts of trouble stopping my sides going green when I bent them.

Cheers.

[woodrat]

Hi Jeremy.....It has only been in there 5 days ... when I took it out it was black but there was a sense of very very dark green about it. I hope 2 weeks will turn it proper black. I am thinking I will spray it with matte lacquer. A friend made some ebonised bindings out of red mahogany and they turned out well. Give it a go...!

[colburge]

I thought about this technique to do some bindings, but read that it only penetrates the surface of the wood. How far do you think it penetrated?


Cheers

Col

[woodrat]

Col, a friend did it with bindings and it went right through...I got a chisel and made a small cut under the bridge and found that it went in at least a millimeter.

[colburge]

Col, a friend did it with bindings and it went right through...I got a chisel and made a small cut under the bridge and found that it went in at least a millimeter.

I will definitely give it a go, probably on my next.

thanks

Col

[DarwinStrings]

When it is finished John can you cut the bridge in half so I can see how deep the stain runs?

Jim

[woodrat]

When it is finished John can you cut the bridge in half so I can see how deep the stain runs?

Jim

Jim...what I'll do for you is take another bridge blank and put it in the solution and cut that in half....I hope to use the blackened bridge ...

...yes I should have thought of that at the start to do a test like that....never mind I will do it asap.

John

[woodrat]

Jim...sorry I didnt do it ASAP...I forgot....but I put it in for you today and I will cut it in 1/2 in a weeks time so you can see how far the treatment goes in....

[DarwinStrings]

Cheers John.

Jim

[ozwood]

John has become the ANZLF's Mrs Marsh,


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h21jl2pLc1o

OOOh it does get in ! ,...... errr we hope.




Cheers,

[woodrat]

Jim this Blackwood blank has been in for about 2 weeks. As you can see it seems to penetrate fairly well. I think that several months would be the go...

John

[needsmorecowbel]

Could you use balsamic?

[Bruce McC]

Could you use balsamic?

........infused with truffles

[woodrat]

I dont know Stu....it might flavour the tone! (?)

...seriously though I dont think you would want to because white vinegar is the cheapest....

[needsmorecowbel]

Great... Now I have to join a dog training forum to train my dog to sniff for truffles...

Stu

[DarwinStrings]

You are right Mrs Marsh, it does get it. May take a long term look my self at it now.

Alternatively Stu, get a French pig.

Jim

[ozwood]

Ohhh it does get in !

...seriously though I dont think you would want to because white vinegar is the cheapest....

Really , I thought given your recent love affair the the finest materials available, you would let the air get to some 1951 Grange , let that turn to Vinegar and use that.

Seriously though , thanks for the experiment , valuable information.

Cheers,

[needsmorecowbel]

This is sounding like quite a nice dinner...Truffles, Grange, Blackwood...Oh and a french pig

[Jeremy D]

Here is a different take.

Today I tried hair dye on a rosewood scrap. It worked very well. Once the dye activated after about 20 mins I rinsed it off and let it dry. It does not rub off and seems to go quite deep. I wish I had fine sanded the test piece as it is really rough. The darker part on the right has howards wax and feed on it. There was no black on the rag after applying it.



This is the underside so you can see the original colour.



This is what I used. From crazy clarks $6.99

[charangohabsburg]

Jim this Blackwood blank has been in for about 2 weeks. As you can see it seems to penetrate fairly well. I think that several months would be the go...

John

You experiments yielded some pretty amazing results John, thank you!

That kind of color penetration is really useful, and also is the black as black as black should be.

As there is no blackwood growing in the woods here around I thought oak, known to also contain tannin, could be a candidate for obtaining similar results. It turned out not to be the case. Two weeks of soaking a piece of oak in a magic brew after your receipt yielded a grey color with light greenish and dark blueish hues, and penetration was pretty poor at about 10 - 15 mm from the end grain side and 0.5 to 2.0 mm on the other surfaces.

2014_P7700_1805.jpg (69.56 KiB) Viewed 18948 times

However, good to see that "something" can be done.
Maybe I should add some planks of non-figured blackwood to my stash.