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I seem to have a wood combination issue that is undesirable. Just put a set of Ebony W/B bindings on great set of Cococolo and a creamy sitka top. After scraping and sanding bindings flush along the top...,I'm now creating some Ebony dust staining on my top. I am down to 220 and 330 grit paper and the ebony dust is filling in to the pores of my Sitka top during my finish sanding and am having trouble getting it out. It's much like graphite smudge on paper.
Any tricks to this?....other than one swipe unidirectional towards binding...wipe paper clean of ebony dust...re swipe and repeat 100ss of times.

Why are the seemingly simplest of issues sometimes the hardest.
Kent

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Wood Creations by Kent A. Bailey
EXCELLENCE IN SCULPTURE, CARVING, LUTHIER, ARCHITECTURAL MILLWORK AND DESIGN

http://www.kabart.com

I made two guitars with ebony binding and didn't notice any problems, same with bloodwood or rosewood. First of all I am using tons of shellac to seal the soundboard prior to binding glueup. IME this seal last a long way and by the time I scrape and sand it all out, the binding is about flush too. From here, as much fine scraping as possible (usually no hook) instead of sanding, unidirectional sanding and a stiff pig hair brush to clean some more. And then 2-3 coats of eggwhite that raise the grain and get fine sanded in between.

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Build log

Kent,

I've used ebony binding on a couple of guitars and maple binding on fretboards. I don't remember having much trouble with the spruce, but maple collected ebony dust like a magnet. Try using compressed air to blow the top clean, it worked on maple. Also try sanding to higher grits. I took a fretboard all the way to 2000 and there wasn't much ebony dust staining on the maple binding. I think the scratches become so fine that you're able to just wipe the dust away.

Bob

Another option is to use a very sharp scraper as the final touch up, rather than sandpaper. If the scrapers sharp enough, you'll be able to scrape the ebony stain off the sitka - no sawdust. Also like the compressed air option - try that first.

A good ROS w/vacuum with 280 grit - it sucks up the dust as you sand and leaves it clean.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Yeah... What Tony said. Don't go finer than 280. 220 works fine too, with a light touch.

Thanks...I tried most of the suggestions and they all seemed to work. I think the used 330 grit paper sanding block had the ebony dust so fine that it was able to penetrate the pores a little.
KB

_________________
Wood Creations by Kent A. Bailey
EXCELLENCE IN SCULPTURE, CARVING, LUTHIER, ARCHITECTURAL MILLWORK AND DESIGN

http://www.kabart.com

I use a vacuum with a small brush to clean the spruce. During final sanding, I also vacuum the paper frequently. I don't use ebony binding, but I do get some dark dust from herringbone and other dyed wood purflings. I never have seen much point in sanding the bare wood finer than 220 grit.
Red spruce is a bit more forgiving in this regard than the other top woods, in my experience.

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John