Ebony binding sanding dust staining top wood- HELP

Beau Hannam Ukuleles

Beau Hannam Ukuleles

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HI,

The ebony bindings im using seem to be....troublesome, at least more so then previous ones with 'dust staining' the spruce and port orford cedar tops im using with them.

I've tried very carefully scraping the bindings down flush then sanding the top with 220, and also scraping the spruce and POC but the ebony particles still show with both methods.

Any tips on cleaning the top???

Thanks,
Beau
:mad:
 
Try using Gurian's black fiber for binding. It looks like ebony; it's even got a grain pattern to it; it's tough as can be; and it's easy to bend and glue.

Once I started using the black fiber, I could not figure out why anyone would torture themselves with ebony, black celluloid, or black Bolteron.

Unless the ebony is just for bragging rights...
 
I know you guys have a lot more experience then myself so I’m hesitant to pipe in, but I recently had a problem with padauk and spruce. I put a wash coat of shellac across the whole thing then went back along the edges to clean up the pink areas (which were really just on the rounded edges). The rounded over soundboard makes it a bit different from most but, I wrapped Sand paper around a pencil so that I could twist as I pulled across the pink areas in only one direction, so that only fresh paper was exposed, and so I wasn’t drawing back onto the soundboard, I sanded it down to 400 in this matter then I refinished. Maybe with some kind of rounded sanding block you could do something similar.

uke photo shoot 074.jpg
I also read a tip on another forum recently where someone was suggesting using compressed air, making the argument that the particles were just stuck in the fibers of the other wood and that you just needed to dislodge them, in my case the air did remove a lot but certainly not all.
 
Paduak has been used as a dye, so I am not sure if this will work with Ebony, but acetone and a rag kept clean, and with clean acetone, wiped from the middle of the soundboard, off over the edge will remove Paduak residue . I have not worked with Ebony next to Spruce, but have worked with Ebony next to Curly Maple. A careful sanding strategy is what worked for that. A vacuum assist sander might be a bonus, but sanding from the Spruce direction, out across the Ebony is a good place to start.

I am interested to hear if acetone helps. Acetone and plastic do not play well together....
 
I have bevelled /chamfered the bindings back to the bwb on the top to minimize (to zero) how much actual ebony could be touched by the sandpaper and contaminate it further. (I should have done this in the first place and it will now be in my sanding procedure.)

I have still been sanding will an outward direction after light scraping with a new box cutter blade + spot/to edge sanding which is a great way to go blind.

Seems to be going ok...or at least way better then before
 
I had the same problem with a Mun Ebony rosette against a yellow cedar top. Sealing the cedar with shellac around the rosette helped my problem.
 
Beau, this isn't an answer to your needs. It is a question as to a knew undertaking of mine. I have read that a wash coat of shellac would help with preventing stains on spruce. I worked with spruce once before and didn't have any problems. Did you use shellac first?
 
I recently had a similar problem on a spruce top Beau. I found that once I sanded the top up to P400 there wasn't anything left for the ebony dust to catch in. Anything less and I could see a black tone to the spruce.
 
I work a lot with this type of scheme: Ebony and Spruce. The easiest and quickest way is to stop sanding and use a scraper. You won't get any of the Ebony dust on the Spruce. Of course your scraper has to be extremely sharp and you will get a touch of texture on the Spruce.
 
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