Ebony and walnut veneer venetian twist pen

After a few failures i managed to make a celtic knot on an ebony wood blank. Ebony is very tricky when sanding since its oily sawdust contaminates the inlay wood. I tried to apply a coat of thin ca to stabilise the wood grains before sanding but it didn't work much. Anyway i stoped sanding at 1500 grit and then used 4 coats of pens plus as a finish. Maybe there is a technique for doing it properly maybe ebony wood is not suitable for such a project. I am thinking about using soft metal as inlay, any thoughts?

Interesting about sanding the ebony. It may not be the look you were going for, but I like how the knot is muted here. It makes it more subtle, and even has kind of an aged patina about it.

Soft metals have a similar issue with the dust contaminating the surrounding material. I've seen it with light woods, and I would suspect you would see the same here with dark wood and light metal. I've found that sanding with the lathe running, it would get smudging, and then light sanding with the grain and the lathe not running would get rid of most of it. Others here have suggested using compressed air while sanding to blow the particles away.

Jeff

Aluminium and ebony look great together.
There are a number of turners able to forgo sanding by careful use of the skew.

It looks great, well placed and executed! I agree about the not sanding part. I've heard that quite a lot around here. It definitely takes a very light and careful touch with the skew to get it smooth, but a couple layers of finish will let you smooth it down further anyway.