ebony cue

[daniel147]

Bought a cue last week and I have lightly sanded it in order to give it an oil finish and it has gone brown and in some places very pale. How was it made so black?

[Mark187187]

Sounds like it might not be ebony if a light sand has removed the colour and made the wood pale. Any dyes etc would have absorbed deeper than any light sand would remove. Any photos?

[vmax]

When buying a cue you need to differentiate between ebony butt and ebonised butt. Ebonised means any wood that has been coloured black, ebony is the real thing but not always black as the sapwood is white and gets darker the closer to the heartwood it gets with streaks of white and brown until it becomes a darker, more uniform colour at the core. It's the oil or laquer finish that gives it the final deep black, take that off and it's true colour is revealed which is quite often a deep dark brown.