Care and Feeding of an Ebony?

[Neal Shields]

When my Grandfather, who was a carpenter, died, no adult in my family had sense enough to save his tools. The old craftsmen not only loved their work, and its products, but also loved the tools that helped them make a living for themselves and their families.

There are some wonderful books of photographs of hand made tools and toolboxes from around the turn of the century. One toolbox I have in mind must have taken over a thousand man-hours to make.

Tools are latent wealth full of promise, and it saddens me to see them taken for granted. Fine cameras are not only a testament to the craftsmen who made them but to the long line of engineers and inventors who found new and clever ways to make them work better and more reliably. Anyone who has ever taken the time to puzzle their way through the workings of even a simple shutter can?t help but be awe struck by the evidence of genius that resides there.

It saddens me when I see a screwdriver that was used for a pry bar, and broken. I have one camera that was used by a professional photographer who worked to his 70?s. He was a friend of mine, and he is dead now. It has marks on it, that are his marks, and I revere those, however it doesn?t show abuse or lack of maintenance.

Real manual labor is a fine schoolmaster, that teaches the value of things that are made, and the labor that was put into them. It gives one a respect and reverence for them.

One of my next projects it to photograph grain silos. I suspect most people think that they are ugly, but I bet those that think that they are ugly haven?t ever been really hungry.

Photography is art, but it is also craft, and true craftsmen, take care of their tools.

Neal

[Julio Fernandez]

Matthew: Congratulations, wish you enjoy your new camera for many years to come.



The best you can do for your ebony is to place it in a glass case in the dark at 50% Relative Humidity. As you will agree this is not appropriate the second best is to protect the camera from fast, drastic changes in humidity as would happen if the canoe tipped over. Ebony is a very dense wood with slow uptake of moisture and is extremely durable but it is not immune to dimensional changes brought about by moisture changes. Waxes as others suggested are useful in as much as they provide some protection against moisture changes and protection against abrasion and mechanical dulling of the wood, however I would not trust any wax to provide you with the kind of protection against extreme conditions. Landscape photography involves unavoidable risk to equipment.



Once I was photographing a stormy looking landscape that quickly changed to a downpour. Fortunately I had my focusing cloth so I quickly draped the camera over with it. Yes, my cloth is black on the inside but on the other side is waterproof. No I do not own a wood camera but I do not like my Technika to get wet either!

[Jonathan Brewer]

Julio.....I said nothing about trusting wax to protect a piece under extreme conditions, I wouldn't wax a workpiece and then submerge it in water, and as I said waxing a workpiece is supplemental protection.

Wax on a regular basis as the wax wears off, do it consistently, and the wood is better off that not waxing, it doesn't make any difference whether it is Ebony, or Bubinga, or Padouk. It's the wear and tear over the long run that you try to address with the wax.

Check out 'the Encyclopedia of Furniture Making' by Ernest Joyce for the expansion and contraction rates for many woods, the important consideration for Ebony is that it is NOT zero. My suggestion to Matthew still stands, wax it if you care about it.

Drop your camera in a lake, finish shooting and leave your camera under the bright noonday sun and take a nap, those are extremes that no finish, no wax, nothing can protect against.

Sure if you're outside your camera gonna be exposed to extreme conditions, but you still attempt to take care of it, so that isn't an argument for not using the wax. It's easy to wax every couple of months and the wood's better off with it than without it no matter what, now if you decide to use you camera as a submarine, nothing is going to help.

[Jonathan Brewer]

'The best you can do for your ebony is to place it in a glass case in the dark at 50% Relative Humidity'.....with all due respect Julio this is not correct.

Whatever the conditions you will be using the camera under, you should place the camera in a similar envirement for at least 72 hours(if possible) or 24 hours if you can spare that, so the camera gets used to the heat or cold or humidity change.

Just putting the camera in a glass case under the conditions you've suggested isn't going to do any good if you're taking the camera up in the mountains for the next week.

Now of course this won't always be possible, but that is the best case scenario.

[neil poulsen]

You might speak with Ebony directly. I'm sure they've given that a lot of thought.

Does anyone know what happened to Ken Hough's Deardorff site? It's disappeared. He had recommendations on how to care for those cameras. Is ebony wood all that different from Honduras mahogany?

[Jonathan Brewer]

Ebony(Macassar ebony, Andaman marble, coromandel, calamander wood etc.)......All are extremely hard and heavy, very finely textured and somewhat cold to the touch with a marble like quality. The colours are showy, ranging from dark greay streaked with saffron-green, brown, red and purple to pure black. The trees do not grow much beyond 8 in in girth.

Honduras Mahogany....Yellowish brow, close even texture. Plain lustrous figure. Medium hard, excellent working properties, very stable. VERY HARD TO GET.

Ebony is considered an exotic wood that is only occasinally available and is something very special, Mahogany in general has been called 'the wood that all other woods are judged by'.

You wouldn't be all that wrong in calling these the Roll Royce and Mercedes of woods, and in the hands of Masters as the makers of the Ebony obviously are they are worked into something very special.

[Julio Fernandez]

Jonathan: I did not mean to disagree or imply anything wrong with your recommendations, in fact I think you did a very good job with them. That said, you missed my tongue in cheek humour about the glass cage. Placing it PERMANENTLY in that cage at 50% RH would indeed be the best for the Ebony, ....but the worst for Matthew; I clearly acknowledged that after mentioning it. I am quite aware of the relevant technical data for ebony, the wood. For one thing, its volumetric shrinkage can be double to nearly triple that of Teak, depending on wheather it is East Indian ebony, or African Ebony. (US Forest Products Laboratory Wood Handbook); which type of ebony was used for making the camera I do not know, but in neither case getting it wet is not the best for it. That is the message I hoped to convey to Matthew. I quite agree that wax which you suggested is I about the only practical thing for the case in question, but by no means trustworthy when it comes to the soaking that cameras can be exposed to in downpours. Ebony is wood, beautiful, strong, hard wood etc. but the reality is that it still is wood, with all its advantages and disadvantages. Better for Matthew to know that now than latter, no?

[Julio Fernandez]

As there seems to be an interest in ebony, the wood, here is an excerpt from the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 2002: "The best Indian and Ceylon ebony is produced by Diospyros ebenum, which grows in abundance throughout the flat country west of Trincomalee in Sri Lanka. The tree is distinguished by the width of its trunk and its jet-black, charred-looking bark, beneath which the wood is pure white until the heart is reached. The heartwood excels in fineness and in the intensity of its dark colour. Although the centre of the tree alone is used, reduced logs 30 cm to almost 1 m (1 to 3 feet) in diameter can be obtained. Much of the East Indian ebony is yielded by the Coromandel ebony, D. melanoxylon, a large tree attaining a height of 18?24 m and 2.4?3 m in circumference, with irregular branches and oblong leaves. D. montana of India yields a yellowish gray, soft but durable wood. D. quaesita is the tree from which is obtained the wood known in Sri Lanka as Calamander. Its closeness of grain, great hardness, and fine hazel-brown colour, mottled and striped with black, render it valuable for veneering and furniture making. D. dendo, native to Angola, is a valuable timber tree with very black and hard heartwood known as black ebony, as billetwood, or as Gabon, Lagos, Calabar, or Niger ebony. Jamaica, American, or green ebony is produced by Brya ebenus, a leguminous tree or shrub; the heartwood is rich dark brown, very heavy, exceedingly hard, and capable of receiving a high polish."

[Peter C. McDonough]

Hi Matthew, I work with ebony wood. It is an oily wood that, in my experience, can be difficult where waxing is involved. There are some waxes that complement it and others that merely stay a sticky film on the surface. I use a beeswax/arnica oil combination that I cook-up in the microwave. The problem with waxing a camera involves the accidental transference of that wax to film, lenses, etc. You might try, in a small area of the wood, a product like Armor- all. I've used it lightly on surfaces and it seems not bad as a sealant. Your best bet would be to not coat the wood and bring along a plastic trash bag in cases where it begins to rain. You might check with The Ebony people and find out if they have treated the wood used in your camera. I would think it is treated and another layer of goop on the wood would only make the camera an excellent dust collecter. Happy shooting. Peter

[Matthew Cordery]

Yeesh. Look what I started.....:-)