I have heard people talk of impregnating wood with epoxy resin for strength. Has anyone ever used this process on ivory. To help make the ferrules or joints stronger.
Ivory
- Thread starter bullshooter69
- Start date
bullshooter69 said:
What's wrong with the strength now, Everything has it's limits for strength, The impregnated wood is not necessarily stronger but it is harder, what I mean by that is any soft wood can be impregnated with the resin to be harder but it's so hard that it's brittle, if you want to use it as a forearm, it must be cored or it will crack when you start playing with it,
Certain things cannot be treated, I know he won't do Snakewood, Wild wood says it would be to heavy, I think it would just crack as soon as he touched it.
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Then you answered my question. When i questioned the strength of ivory it was because all i here is the problem with ivory on a ferrule if you don"t put a pad under the tip or people say if you have a ivory ferrule or joint don"t break with it because of the possibility of breaking the joint or ferrule. I was only asking about improving ferrules or joints. You really answered my question when wood is impregnated it stands the chance of being brittle. I could understand that would be worse for ivory. Thanks
dave sutton
Banned
you CAN break with but its not recommended. i wouldnt but know ppl that do. i always use a pad for peice of mind. better safe then sorry. ive never had or seen an ivory ferrule crack WITH a pad. ive used pads on non ivory ferrules at request. some like the look. i like the extra bounce. ivory isnt as unstable as some think. some use phenolic and sleeve ivory on for stability. i think thats weak. ine even seen a jensen with some type of ivory sleeved over SS. i like solid piloted or solid flat. all up to the artists beliefs i guess. no right or wrong answer
dave sutton said:
Dave,
By extra bounce, are you saying it hits softer or has more action or both.
thanks
John
dave sutton
Banned
Ridge Runner said:
well kinda. its noticeable. i like it some dont. its not like a squshy soft. for me i feel the cueball better
bullshooter69 said:
I have played with Ivory ferrules for 20 years and I have not had the first one crack. I have an old Joss, 2 Black Boars and 2 Mark Bears, all with ivory ferrules. I play about 20 hours a week and I sometimes break with them.
It has been done. A guy used to use the same process used for impregnating wood on ivory, but he did it to make colored ivory. It seemed to make almost no differnece in strength or weakness. He thought knife handle makers would love it, but most just said, "That can't be ivory it is colored." The reason it made very little difference in strength is because Ivory is not porous like bone or wood so it retains very little acrylic. On the other hand a burl wood might be weak and very porous and it retains a lot of the acrylic and therefore is made stronger. Most ivory cracks not because of impact, but it cracks because the tip mushrooms and spreads outward and seperates the end of the ferrule along a grain line. It is just like splitting wood along a grain line. What the pad mainly does is keeps the outward force of a mushrooming tip from spreading the ivory with it. Many of the new layered tips don't spread out much so they are almost as good as having a pad on the ferrule.
Good info i hope more get to read this. I had already thought that about layered tips that they would help keep from cracking. This was good positive feedback. THANKScueman said:
Yes, that is correct for the most part. What happens is the adhesive also cracks along a Ivory grain line yet the two halves that are still stuck to the ivory keep going and the Ivory splits. I have actually seen plastic ferrule flared out and not even cracked yet because of this and I have seen them cracked. The older Meucci ferrules with thin walls were a prime example of a muchrooming tip doing this to a ferrule. Well the ivory won't flare so it splits just like a wooden log.Mr Hoppe said: