<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN"> <html><head><style type="text/css"></style><title>Re: Ebony bridge caps</title></head><body> <div>At 2:37 pm -0600 3/6/07, Michael Spreeman wrote:</div> <div><br></div> <blockquote type="cite" cite>I have taken sample pieces of ebony and attempted to notch them by hand with disastrous results. Ebony is so hard and brittle that it wants to chip and split, even with the sharpest of chisels and shallow cuts.  I've approached it from the top down and by coming in from the side.  The side cutting method works well with Hornbeam, but doesn't seem to do well with the harder ebony. Do any of you master woodworkers have any suggestions (short of not using ebony 8-)  )</blockquote> <div><br></div> <div>Something seemed incongruous here, so I took some ebony and tried it.  Conclusion : either what you have is not ebony or it's not what I know as ebony.  What you describe sounds to me more like the way old ebonized pearwood would behave; does it smell sharp and acrid and dusty?</div> <div><br></div> <div>I took an ebony sharp and _roughly_ notched it with a 1/2" chisel and found no tendency to split or chip.  I would describe its texture as very hard "waxy" or "cheesy", similar in working to the Rio rosewood of the 19th century (Dalbergia Nigra?), responding very well to the plane and chisel and leaving a fine silky surface.  The pores are visible but very fine, much finer than walnut.</div> <div><br></div> <div><br></div> <div align="center"><img src="cid:p06240801c2899e1c43f9@[10.0.0.1].1.0"></div> <div align="center"><img src="cid:p06240801c2899e1c43f9@[10.0.0.1].1.1"></div> <div><br></div> <div>I recently worked on the rather dreadful 'Simplex' action of a German 4'9" baby grand by a firm called Emil Pauer.  The power and brilliance of the tone of the piano was rather surprising, and I noticed that the long bridge was capped with rosewood for all its length, which I had never seen before.  Many of the best European makers capped the top section with boxwood, as you must know.  It's unlikely that they did not also experient with rosewood, ebony and African blackwood and unlikely, I think, that they chose boxwood only for its easy colour blending with the beech or maple.</div> <div><br></div> <div>If you want to go really extreme, try Delignit Panzerholz, but to notch that by hand you'd need tungsten carbide chisels and the strecth of an ox!</div> <div><br></div> <div>JD</div> <div><br></div> <div><br></div> <div><br></div> <div><br></div> <div><br></div> </body> </html>