Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing best source for ebony wood block?

Gents,

I'm going to give shaping a forend tip and pistol grip from ebony a shot. (Adding them to a Boyd's walnut stock I got for $40, so a good learning opportunity.) What's the best place to get a decent quality block and hardwood dowels?

I see some options online but curious where you get yours.

Thanks y'all.

Amazon has a wide choice with free returns.

Is there an exotic hardwood dealer in your area? It's always waaaaay better to examine the stuff in person before buying. There are two main types on the market (well, actually there are more but for the purposes of arguing about ebony there are two commonly available) - Gabon ebony and Madagascar ebony. The Gabon stuff is generally more purely black, Madagascar is more brownish and usually has streaks of brown in it. The fewer brown streaks the more desirable (and expensive).

Ebony is prone to cracking in the curing process. Look closely for cracks. Also cracks can appear when the wood is opened up. Not the end of the world - wash thoroughly with acetone and trickle/squeegee epoxy into the crack. Trick: create a pile of sanding dust from the ebony and use it to dye the epoxy black, and the crack will completely disappear. I recommend the same coloring trick with the epoxy you'll use to glue it onto the fore end. The glue line will totally disappear. (And you should use epoxy, IMO, after washing the oily-ness off the joint surfaces with acetone. Yellow glue doesn't bond to ebony as well as epoxy does in my experience, and don't get me started about cyanoacrylate or Gorilla Glue.)

Use as big wood dowels to anchor it onto the stock as you can get away with. Bigger = better structural integrity. Another technique is to mill/rout a slot in the barrel channel that subtends the walnut and the ebony both, then epoxy a floating tenon in place. An end grain-to end grain glue joint is the worst joint and you need to do everything in your power to effect a mechanical lock.

If you don't have an exotic hardwood dealer nearby, let me know. We have an excellent one here and I'd be happy to select a chunk for you, subject to communication with you.

Heck, I might even have a piece in my stash that would suit.

The dealer I had is gone.

Ebony Macassar(2) Gabon

It's called Macassar ebony, not Madagascar, it's typically what the most exotic of pianos are veneered with.

Actually we're both right. My local guy, a South African national who imports exotic woods from around the world to supplement his domestic offerings and whom maintains mills in Africa to support his American enterprise (and truly knows his stuff) lectured me about the differences and nomenclature of the bewildering kinds of ebony. Macassar ebony comes from India/SE Asia, Madagascar comes from that island African nation, Gabon (or Gaboon, depending on the English translation) comes from mainland Africa, generally from around that country. There's a lot of overlap in the colorations, not to mention confusion in definitions, but all behaves generally the same in application.

Gnoaaah, Please. Give us a brand name of adhesive you would typically use on a forend tip.

I'm a religious user of West System epoxy for all my gunstock work, but there are other epoxies out there that may well be as good or better. It's just that after using West System (in all its iterations) for decades in the custom yacht business (we bought it in 50 gallon drums) I'm very familiar with it and am reluctant to switch. I've even used it to bed gunstocks, thickened with colloidal silica and colored to varying hues with different agents, with eminently satisfactory results.

West System...good, easy peasy, there is a West Marine store that advertises it just a couple hours south..I will check, but shipping is probably crazy...I think catalyst is hazmat.

FYI, you can get it from McMaster-Carr. Good price and quick no-hassle delivery. Since I switched from full time boat builder to small time hobbyist that's where I get it from now.

West systems makes sense if you are a boat builder but otherwise there are easier options. I use recorcinal glue from the wood working store
I'm a airplane guy and it's the only glue allowed for spar and rib work

I have been using West as well as System Three as my go-to wood adhesives for many years both in boat building and general woodworking. You can't really can't do better.

For ebony fore-ends I mix in a bit of black graphite into the epoxy to give it a jet black color - similar to the Gabon Ebony I have been using for the fore-ends - fills minor imperfections and produces a near invisible glue line. West sells small cans for use with their epoxy.

You can use hardwood dowels and they work well but I have been using threaded sections of two #10 stainless or bronze wood screws with the heads cut off in place of dowels and, bedded in epoxy, they will absolutely not come loose. Could be tough on a blade if you chose to cut the fore-end off at some point but I doubt that will come up.

Am not a professional stock builder but have done a dozen or so using screws with perfect results.

I got a kick out of the "is there an exotic hardwood dealer in your area."

If you live in the Great Out Yonder, probably not. But if you live within driving distance of a metropolitan area (which means a helluva lot of Americans anymore) there's lots of exotic hardwood dealers to be found. ("Exotic" defined as stuff not found locally, not necessarily weird unheard of species from Africa, Asia, and South America.)

I understand, but it was funny to me. If you can't find it at Dollar General, you are going to have to drive 3 hours.

I was going to ask the very question the OP asked, but I'm not thinking of just doing it with a block of Walnut.

Great Thread, and very educational!

Enjoying it.

HS 58

Actually, a chunk of walnut may not be such a bad idea. You can "ebonize" it to be about as black as ebony.

Get a small saucepan from your wife's cabinet, set it on the stove (or outside on a hot plate - I wouldn't use an open flame for reasons that should become apparent, the stuff is pretty flammable) and fill with linseed oil sufficient to cover the part. Get it hotter than hot, but no real need to get it boiling. Keep it in there all day, maybe two days depending on density of wood and heat. You'll just have to experiment with times and temperatures. When it's as black as you want, wipe dry, let cool and polish. I never did this with stuff that had to be glued onto another surface and can't speak to glue adhesion qualities of the oil saturated wood, but if dried thoroughly I really can't imagine it would be any worse than dealing with naturally oily woods, such as ebony. Don't forget to put the sauce pan back in the kitchen when you're done.

I also don't really know how deep the color goes, so you might first want to shape it within a gnat's breath of final size.


My grandfather taught me the trick almost 60 years ago when he put me to work in his vintage steam car restoration shop, tending the pot on a hot plate. I was in charge of ebonizing the wooden handles for such things as the steering tillers, brake handles, drive sprocket gear change levers, etc. After wiping off and drying I then polished them on a muslin wheel to a high black gloss, but there was no gluing involved. On successive projects he taught me wood lathe use and had me turning the handles too. (He did six steam cars from 1965-1970 ranging from an 1898 Locomobile to a 1908 White - similar to the car Jay Leno recently burned himself on.)