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I have never done any ebonizing. So, any helpful tips and "watch outs" you have will be appreciated. Even if it means abandoning my plan below.

I have Higgins black fountain pen ink, Behlen Black Furniture Powder, and Craftsmark black acrylic paint. My plan was to use the Higgins ink to ebonize a walnut fretboard and a walnut bridge.

The fretboard is to have white plastic binding and white pearloid dots on the fretboard face. I thought I'd leave the fretboard unfretted (it is slotted) but with pearloid dots installed and plastic binding installed, and everything sanded flush.
I'd mask the binding and put shellac on the pearloid before applying the ink. Let the ink dry a couple of days before fretting the board.

I will tape off the board for fretting. I assume it will not cause problems except possible tearing out some small wood fibers.

How have you tackled fretbnoards and bridges?

Ed

Walnut is one of those woods with a naturally high tannin content. One way to ebonize it is to soak steel wool in a vinegar solution for a few days and then wet the walnut with the solution formed. The reaction of the solution with the tannin in the walnut will turn the wood black. One advantage to this method is it can be periodically renewed as the fretboard wears and it is less likely to stain the binding and pearloid.

https://makerdesignlab.com/experiments/ ... few%20days.

I used iron acetate, vinegar left with steel wool soaking in it for a week or so. I used it on Spanish Cedar, and on Maple. Not completely black, especially on the maple, but on walnut it should get pretty black. Mine is clear transparent red in the jar now. Just using it is fun. It gets fairly deep into the wood.
You could even fill spots that don't get real black with water color, or ink if you want it to be completely black. I'm not a fan of solid black, it looks like plastic! But I would check how those work.
Binding with white first? Sounds like asking for trouble to me.
Ahh, they are already there, along with the pearloid dots!

Both the iron acetate and ink will be very thin. Shellac might work on the pearloid. I'd check. Tape could work on the binding, but don't be careful around the edge with your brush.

I like the more natural look.

Hah. I thought this was sent at about 5pm! Happens a lot. Clay is thinking like me.

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Why be normal?

Thanks, Clay and Ken. I just put some vinegar and steel wool in a jar to try a test piece on the walnut in a few days.

What is the experience of others that have used the ink? (I bought the ink from StewMc)

Here are the choices I have for starting points for ebonixing a fretboard. The one in the bottom of the picture is directly from StewMc in their ukulele kit. All I've done to it at this point is cut .060" off each side and the end, and dril 2 holes for adding more pearloid dot.

Which is the best condition to start? (There is minor sanding to level the new dots and binding. So a tint amount of wood is removed to achieve the final condition.)

The fretboard at the top of the picture is finished with the added plastic bindings and pearloid dots. These are 2 of 4 fretboards in ukulele kits I'm building for my grandkids Christmas.

I want to ebonize 1 or 2 of the 4 fretboards. Each uke is being trimmed uniquely.



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I too have used the steel wool and vinegar to blacked a fretboard (red oak). It is nice because it alters the color of the wood rather than just adding a color layer on top. It doesn't penetrate super deep so it will wear away with the wood but the new wood is easily re-treated.

You may find that it does not change the color of the binding and dots (test this first). If so, you can treat the board after it is all flushed up and not have to worry about masking. However, it will probably not darken any areas that have excess glue squeeze out that has soaked into the fibers.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I've used the Fiebings leather dye before which I bought at Tandy's. StewMac used to sell it but not sure if they still do.

+1 for using dye on the face of a FBs. Dye will penetrate far better than iron acetate. I do use iron acetate on necks cuz it’s gonna have additional finish applied over the ebonizing. Remember to take extra care on the corners when lightly sanding as it’s easy to burn through the ebonizing.

A few additional things: Before placing in white vinegar, wash the steel wool with Dawn or similar to remove the oils used in its manufacture. Use a stick or whatever’s at hand to force the steel wool to the bottom of the container as it will float to the top in the vinegar. Make super strong black tea to help low tannin woods to darken more easily. 4 bags in a cup of boiling water - steep for 10 minutes will do the trick. I use the corner of a foam brush to apply (it doesn’t take much), first the tea, followed by the acetate. I let each pass dry before moving on. I find I have really good control and don’t usually need to mask. I do take extra care around purflings.

M

Veneer is sometimes dyed under pressure to drive the dye all the way through. I wonder if you could use a pressure cooker (out doors on a gas grill?) to improve the penetration of the the vinegar/iron solution? A uke fretboard blank might be small enough to fit.

Hi Ed. Wanted to add a different perspective.

This morning I will travel to our shop and work on 3 - 4 guitars as I always do. In all cases today the fret boards will be cleaned (OOOO steel wool) and conditioned (Howard Feed-n-wax). Sometimes cleaning also means taking a single edge razor blade and lightly scraping the entire fret board to get the accumulated gunk off.

So with this said any fretboard treatment needs to be able to stand up to, well.... me and my cleaning. If what you do process wise does not penetrate the board cleaning will result in some of it coming off and it may look terrible afterwards.

I generally have no tell tale when I approach an instrument if anything has been done to color the fretboard. Some cheap Chinese imports have dyed the fretboards and the dye comes off and it looks like doo doo. It's also my experience that dyed boards are very rare these days and when I do see dye it's usually a bridge.

So the reason for my post is that a fretboard more so than any other part of the instrument must be durable and able to be serviced as well meaning serviceable.

As such I would recommend maybe trying on scrap some Howards Feed-n-wax which we apply annually to our own instruments and every client instrument, 1,100 plus annually gets it too. It will take that dull look and pop the figure and darken it 3 - 4 shades. When it wears off you simply reapply it does not build up and we've used it on over 10,000 instruments with never a complaint other than people want to know what we used so they can do it themselves.

It's wax on and a minute later wax off and then you move on, could not be easier and the look is very nice.

Way easier than ebonizing, serviceable and it looks great. Might be worth some consideration. It will not turn your stuff black but it will darken it considerably.

Thanks, Hesh.

I already have some Howards Feeds N Wax, so I'll try it on scrap. I'm not happy with all my tests so far, and I don't want to give my grandson something that will not hold up over time.