Ebony inlay substitutes.

[recipio]

Folks, I like to make small circular tables with a black inlay about 30 cms in diameter. So far i have used solid ebony about 3 mm square but it is brittle stuff and not easy to bend to that radius, Does anybody use black hot melt glue for inlay lines. ? I've seen one hot melt system with it's own blade for scraping off excess and aluminium block but it is about £ 350.
Likewise using shellac sticks would be very pricey. Any suggestions welcome.

 

[Inspector]

A couple suggestions.

Casting epoxy, dyed black.

Dye a less expensive wood like Maple and then inlay it as you would the Ebony.

Pete

 

[niall Y]

Would African Blackwood perform better?

 

[recipio]

Thanks all. Somehow using a chemical product goes against the grain - it doesn;' feel ' right ' in fine furniture. African blackwood is also very brittle. I have some Wenge so I'll give that a go next time.

 

[BCS1980UK]

It might be a long shot but have you considered guitar binding?

 

[graham88]

+1 for guitar binding.

 

[Ollie78]

The hot melt glue filler (polyamide i think it is) is good and ,may work for your purpose.
I will say there are a couple of ussue to be aware of.
Because it is a meltable product it will melt again once aplied, so if you are belt sanding over a patch you have to be pretty careful not to heat it up too much or it can go soft.
It is not designed to be highly polished and prefers being cut or planed with a very sharp blade rather than sanded.

 

[Cabinetman]

I would think, though I haven’t done exactly this, that a 3mm square inlay pulled slowly through boiling water then gently placed inside a bucket or similar to dry would be much easier to inlay into your tables,
Ian
Ps, if you decide to stain another wood probably best do it after the boiling water lol.

 

[TRITON]

African blackwood is also very brittle

Im not sure it is actually. African blackwood is the timber used in musical instrument production, for mouthpieces in clarinets,oboes, bagpipes etc etc So its going to be robust enough for that, and mouthpieces are in parts quite thin.
I've a few really top class bits, and i like it for its finer grain over ebony. Smoother, cleaner, polishes amazingly

 

[Sachakins]

This is guitar purfling, it's Maple dyed black, may work for you.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/26648166..._TECSIwRW6&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

[velar]

Don’t know if anybody’s said this yet but black veneer sheets from somewhere like originalmarquetry.com can be glued up to whatever thickness you like and sliced and bent pretty easily

 

[XTiffy]

Boxwood inlays died black are a standard veneer item. They are normally called "Boxwood stringing". These come in all sorts of cross section sizes from around 1mm sq through to around 3mm and around 1mtr in length I think I have some in my barn. They bend quite easily as they are not brittle like ebony, they are easy to join with a scarf joint. I have always used hot hide glue to glue into a clean slot. These and other decorative veneer banding are I am sure are still available, Crispins veneer merchants who used to be in the East End, Londo but now in Southend(?).

 

[Bob Chapman]

A groove filled with araldite mixed with old black toner from a laser printer works well.

 

[profchris]

You might try black fibre guitar binding/purfling. Under finish it should look just like ebony, and no difficulty bending it to your circle.

Widths include 1.5 mm (eg https://luthierssupplies.co.uk/product/bfp03-black-fibre/) so you could double up to get your 3mm width.

 

[recipio]

You might try black fibre guitar binding/purfling. Under finish it should look just like ebony, and no difficulty bending it to your circle.

Widths include 1.5 mm (eg https://luthierssupplies.co.uk/product/bfp03-black-fibre/) so you could double up to get your 3mm width.

Thanks for all the suggestions. As I say on second thought I'd rather not use a chemical product. The purfling looks promising as I'd prefer a jet black finish. Some dyed stringing can look more blue than black so I'll keep experimenting.

 

[Phill05]

Thanks for all the suggestions. As I say on second thought I'd rather not use a chemical product. The purfling looks promising as I'd prefer a jet black finish. Some dyed stringing can look more blue than black so I'll keep experimenting.

I don't know if this would help with your problem but: I used to do a lot of clock engraving and case work and I had some feather stringing like >>>missing I used some black engraving wax you melt it in with a hot iron (soldering iron) it goes very hard and you can sand it down then after polish it and coat over.

Depends just how big a piece you have to do.