Originally Posted by
Drew Wiley
Different woods (and even cuts of wood) respond somewhat differently due to the amount of tannins present as well as how deep your solution soaks in. Ebonizing is a lot of work for big projects, but cost effective in terms of the inexpensive solution itself. Pseudo-ebonizing with India ink, such as Evan is obviously quite skilled at, is impossible to do on large projects simply because one cannot acquire significant quantities of the ink, which is relatively expensive to begin with. A camera is something small, so you could realistically apply either technique, but the look might be different. Ink is always full opaque black, whereas chemical ebonizing might
allow some of the underlying wood color through, though quite differently than the effect of an ordinary dye stain. For example, one of my intermittent customers
is the largest wholesale framing shop in the area. They used to do quite a bit of business ebonizing black walnut frames. The effect was elegant - a deep black with a hint of brown, quite unlike all these black painted frames one sees. But walnut is quite expensive, and the process labor-intensive. So they compromised and
now mainly use inexpensive poplar frames with India ink, which gives them a much less expensive option than true walnut ebonizing. Poplar looks like hell stained
with ordinary stains (despite what the do-it-yourselfer sites and magazines state). I'm more the type who makes various hardwood frames because I enjoy doing
it. But if you're framing as a business, there would have to be a serious upcharge to it to make ends meet. Just practice on a scrap of something before applying
any such technique to a camera. The ebonizing solution still contains a lot of water, and not just acetic acid, so your camera wood will hypothetically be subject to warping, swelling, and grain raise requiring a bit of minor sanding. India ink does not introduce that risk.
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