ebonised eucalyptus

[mr dazzler]

I made an intriguing discovery today. Last year I turned some hollow form vessells from green eucalyptus wood and just let them stand and dry. The last few days I have been making 2 frame drum shells, one of which has an ebonised black (vinegraoon) finish. I knew that eucalyptus has a high tannin content (judging from its reaction to the face plate and screws!) so thought why not try it on the vessell? The fascinating thing is that the ebonising affects the sap wood and heart wood entirely differently-the sap wood went a pale blue-slate colour, the heartwood went deep black. It brought out a whole new look for eucapytus which I had thought of as a grubby messy wood
Anyway, might be of interest to someone

 

[Stew]

Pictures!

 

[Nice65]

Pictures!

What he said.

I agree with you, Eucalyptus just seems to be a wet, pulpy mess of wood. It takes an age to season for the fire, doesn't have a definite grain pattern, and just isn't interesting. Good to hear the tannins are at work, it's a wood that used to score black on chainsaw chains or splitting mauls, leaving deep, dark blue stain in the wood before going black.

 

[Tony]

Sounds like it could be beautiful, i'd be up for seeing some pics

 

[mr dazzler]

I'll have a go, I need to get an image hoster though.
I want to try the same thing on "tree of heaven" (

Sounds like it could be beautiful, i'd be up for seeing some pics

Are you allowed to use photo bucket to post pics these days, its a long time since I posted any photos

 

[Robson Valley]

Photobucket closed picture hosting unless you pay $400.
They are making noises about a $100 account that would work OK.
Undecided if I'll try it for the stock pf photos that I stored with them.

PostImage is still free but we all can see now what's possible, down the track.

Eucalyptus: are you talking about sap wood or heart wood?
It isn't news any more, there are 600+ different species of Eucalyptus.
Many with spectacular figure and grain and color.

 

[mr dazzler]

This show the difference between plain eucalyptus and treated with vinegar/wire wool solution

The photos are a little bit over exposed and bleached, but you get the idea
This is the same solution on an oak drum shell


and on a eucalyptus spoon