Dyeing ebony?

[leib10]

Anybody have experience with it? Do you need to remove the inlays before you dye the wood?

 

[Bob Savage]

Perhaps this is a common practice that I'm just unaware of, but why would you dye ebony? It's very expensive wood and is beautiful as-is.

 

[rupe]

It's actually done alot...pure black ebony doesn't just grow on trees
They dye it to get rid of any lighter colored streaks.

 

[th3m1ke]

Stew mac sells this kind of stain and it has great reviews and is safe on inlays.

 

[verderacer]

Im the same way except when I would have a really light piece like in the 3rd before pic to dye it. The 1st 2 before pics I like the character of the natural wood and would just oil it.

 

[leib10]

It's actually done alot...pure black ebony doesn't just grow on trees
They dye it to get rid of any lighter colored streaks.

This. The ebony these days isn't as purely black as it used to be. It's more like a dark, dark brown with lighter streaks. One of my guitars is like this.

 

[Bob Savage]

It's actually done alot...pure black ebony doesn't just grow on trees
They dye it to get rid of any lighter colored streaks.

Nice pun. . It does where I shop for wood but the price tag may deter some for the pure black stuff. I guess volume may be an issue too.

 

[Digital Jams]

It's actually done alot...pure black ebony doesn't just grow on trees
They dye it to get rid of any lighter colored streaks.

I did some digging around the internetz several years ago due to some debate and that is what I discovered, total black Ebony is very rare in bulk these days. Very black Ebony commands a high price.

Due to cutting lots of wood because of home heating oil being $3.70 a gallon I have also found out that Spalted maple is a very sick and soon to die tree and not very hard I will never consider that wood but it burns great

 

[Bob Savage]

Yep, spalting is a fungal attack but in early stages can be incredible in Maple and not so soft that you can't work with it.

 

[chumbucket]

Anybody have experience with it? Do you need to remove the inlays before you dye the wood?

I had it done to a rosewood neck and it wears off on your fingers for quite a long time afterwards. The neck still stays black though.

 

[leib10]

Had some Fiebing's leather dye left over from another project and put it on the fretboard. Looks 100% better, like Gaboon ebony, and it's not coming off on my fingers!

 

[blackba]

I wonder if we will see more Ebonized fretboards in the future. I have a Gretsch Brian Setzer hot rod with an Ebonized board, I assume it is just colored rosewood.

 

[leib10]

Not sure... thinking about doing my Hellraiser with the rosewood fretboard. I wonder if it'll take the dye as well as the ebony did.

 

[verderacer]

I wonder if we will see more Ebonized fretboards in the future. I have a Gretsch Brian Setzer hot rod with an Ebonized board, I assume it is just colored rosewood.

Its a sad state when we even have to ask, or even assume, this question because of the wood nazi's...

 

[jack butler]

Someone asked about dying a Pao Ferro fingerboard on the Suhr forums. The Suhr guys said the dye would eventually come off, and wouldn't recommend doing it.

 

[blackba]

I wonder if we will see more Ebonized fretboards in the future. I have a Gretsch Brian Setzer hot rod with an Ebonized board, I assume it is just colored rosewood.

Its a sad state when we even have to ask, or even assume, this question because of the wood nazi's...

Totally agree man.

 

[leib10]

Redid my rosewood fretboard on my Hellraiser...

 

[raz311]

I just bought a new ESP Horizon FR II the other week and that has a dyed eboner board. My fingers are black for days lol. Looks like I was just fingerprinted Great guitar otherwise

 

[joepete77]

THis is why I buy my guitars used, I never had any issues with my pre 2004 gibsons etc , in fact every Old gibson I have had has the perfect black, smooth ebony board and not the dried out tan crap they try to pass off as ebony these days, or worse yet "richlite"

 

[K-mark5]

hmm it's not that there was something wrong with today's ebony.. there are at least two species I know of so it really depends. First one is macassar ebony and it's got these lighter and darker streaks combined seeing on the left hand side on the pics.. On the other hand there is gabon ebony which is pure black (and which I used for building my guitar). I would not oil ebony to be honest as it's not much of a grainy wood it would last a very short time looking like that and then you'd have to do it again after 2 weeks..