Finishing Method - Ebony

[Joe D'Attilio]

Can someone recommend or provide a tutorial for finishingpens with a high luster gloss. I'm currently working with ebony and it seems to maintain a pretty flat finish; I was wondering if there is a way to polish it and create a very high luster gloss finish.

I've heard about CA, but unsure of the exact steps involved.

Are there any other methods?

Any help greatly appreciated

[Phil St.Germain]

Joe,

When it comes to finishing, you may get a million different answers. Heres mine.
With Ebony, I always make sure that I use Micro Mesh up through all of the grits. I have found that Ebony likes to hide sanding marks until after you apply the first coat of finish. Between each grit make sure that you wipe the blanks down your choice of compressed air, DNA, Naptha....

I have used CA as a finish for a while and found a method that works for me. I simply apply the CA stright from the bottle with the bag that the pen parts came in. Sand between each coat to 800 or MM ??, it's subjective. After 3 or 4 coats, I will buff it out. The shine is great and I have found the finish to be very durable.

The one thing to watch out for with ebony is heat. Don't heat it during drilling or sanding, you raise the probability of the blank cracking.

just my 2 cents

Phil