Ebony

Several species of trees of the family of the Ebenaceae and pertaining to the kind Diospyros bear the name of ebony or are also called ebony tree . They meet in the tropical areas of the Old world and are known since highest Antiquité for the black color of their Bois.

Only the diospyros with black wood can take the ebony name. The Persimmon tree S ( khaki Diospyros ), for example, although very close relations botaniquement, are not ebony trees.

The word ebony (of the female kind) is derived from Latin ebenus , itself of the Greek ebenos (word of Egyptian origin hbnj ) who indicated already this tree. Already at the time of the Pharaonic Egypt, this wood entered the composition of small invaluable objects of all kinds.

Ecology

; Habitat: mountain heats and stony. High from 25 to 30 m (dimensions of a oak) for a Barrel from 7 to 10 m and a diameter of less than one meter.

Only the feet females would be famous to have a good ebony of rather stable black color with very little (or not) of veins blanchâtres.

Wood

  • Black or veined invaluable Wood very . Very fine grain, very heavy wood. Wire right, clear cut, very dry under the tool and frank splitting. Finely spangled incrustation of crystals of Oxalic acid which gives him its aspect scintillating so particular to the light. Polish perfect, shining, very smooth, chechmate or brilliance, very heavy (density of 1,00 to 1,10) discharged in logs purged of sapwood of sufficient size to be carried by a man (30-70 kg) then related to other less dense species to ensure its buoyancy.
  • Botanical, species:
    • Ebony of the Indies, Diospyros ebenum (India, Ceylon). Quasi-impossible export (protected space) and only of small finished parts of stringed-instrument trade can be exported.
    • Ebony of Madagascar Diospyros perrieri (Madagascar, Maurice). It is the variety which was used for the French pieces of furniture of the XVII° and XVIII° centuries.
    • Ebène of Gabon Diospyros will crassiflora (Gabon, Cameroun). It is the least black variety; it is even sometimes veined of white.

Use

  • worked in cabinet work, Sculpture, Stringed-instrument trade, Marquetry and in plays (failures, ladies…) in the form of sawn timber, in layers or sawn plating. It is also used for the design of musical instruments the such clarinet, the oboe, the key of the string instruments and certain drumsticks.

History

Corporations

As of the 12th century, ebony was regarded in Europe as a wood of most invaluable. It was employed with the manufacture of small objects (boxes, handles of knives, sets of failures, etc).

At the 16th century, one succeeds in outputting it in very thin plates that specialists stuck on richly decorated pieces of furniture.

In France, the workmen who worked wood were grouped, since the 11th century, in two corporations: that of the Carpenter S, for the Carcass work heavy castings and that of the Carpenter S, for the smaller objects (Piece of furniture S, door frame, parquet floor, etc).

But there, it was a work of utmost precision, which none of these two corporations could practice. The first cabinetmakers came from the Netherlands. In haste, it was thus necessary to create, in Paris, in 1743 the Corporation of the cabinetmaker S. In 1789, at the time of the General states this corporation Parisian counted already officially 1  142 members. They had gathered naturally in the Faubourg Saint-Anthony with two steps of the Bastille…

Notes, references

See too

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