Ebony?

[frogjunk]

Hello. This is my first post, so I'm looking forward to getting to know everybody here. I have a good friend who gave me a large piece of ebony and I was just wondering if it's a good candidate for pipemaking. Any experience or advice? Thanks.

[Alan L]

In my limited experience, true ebony (Diospyros sp.) will crack when exposed to heat and moisture. African Blackwood (Dalbergia sp.) works fine. Trouble is, both are black, heavy, and come from Africa. Do you know for sure what you've got?

[LexKY_Pipe]

I have several pipes given to me from friends who have been to Africa. They smoke nice because it's so hard I guess. No cracking yet.

[Charl]

Yip, african blackwood is very very very hard (and therefore heavy!). They definitely won't crack and would probably outlast briar.

[frogjunk]

Thanks for the replies. I'm not an expert on wood. All I know is that the person who gave this wood to me is an African artist/carver from Mali. He has hand carved several ebony pipes, which are phenomenal, and has carved some briar pipes for me after I drilled the holes and fit the stems. I can only assume that the wood he gave me is true ebony. It does have a white inner core, if that's any indication. I'm anxious to give it a try.