I'm interested in ebonizing some wood for an upcoming project. I had read Brian Boggs' method using a tannin extract tea and rusty vinegar water. (Here's the article, unfortunately pictures aren't working on PW articles, but here's another post using the same method) In this method, you soak wood in a tannin tea from quebracho bark, which is very high in tannins. Then you paint on rusty water, and it turns jet black nearly instantly. (For chem minded folks, I think the tannins reduce and chelate the iron, resulting in the black iron (II) color) I couldn't find a good source for quebracho where the shipping wouldn't cost dearly, though, so I got some winemaker's tannin on Amazon (1 lb. for $10, free shipping) and used that instead. It's tannin from European chestnut.
I tried it on a variety of woods. The results were great. Death black... space black.
Eastern white pine, hard maple, khaya, red oak, white ash
Top is tannin + iron, middle is iron only. Iron only did not yield any satisfactory results, even on high-tannin wood like oak. The pic perhaps doesn't do it justice... all pieces are dead black in person with the exception of the pine, which has a slight bluish cast. Maple took 2x staining but eventually got to black. The khaya and ash look especially great. The nice open grain of the ash combined with the striking black is a nice combo. I'm going to use ash for some stool legs soon and ebonize them, and I'm using maple for a shaker clock I'm building... going to ebonize the knobs and trim for contrast.
My jar of steel wool and vinegar.
The tannin I used
I tried it on a variety of woods. The results were great. Death black... space black.
Eastern white pine, hard maple, khaya, red oak, white ash
Top is tannin + iron, middle is iron only. Iron only did not yield any satisfactory results, even on high-tannin wood like oak. The pic perhaps doesn't do it justice... all pieces are dead black in person with the exception of the pine, which has a slight bluish cast. Maple took 2x staining but eventually got to black. The khaya and ash look especially great. The nice open grain of the ash combined with the striking black is a nice combo. I'm going to use ash for some stool legs soon and ebonize them, and I'm using maple for a shaker clock I'm building... going to ebonize the knobs and trim for contrast.
My jar of steel wool and vinegar.
The tannin I used