Heres an E-mail I got from an ebony supplier .I hope it doesn’t end up as pool cue’s.
"I currently have a rare Ebony log up for grabs. Believed to have been imported from Gabon over 20 years ago I have never seen anything like it. It is excellent black ebony and the log is extremely clean please see pics attached.
Spec
10ft long
11" diameter
just under 200kg"
How much would this be worth? (Ball park)
Depending on the amount of cracks in it but street value $5000?
The asking price is only 1360GBP, which is a great bargain if the ebony is as good as the ad says.
Mark
Wow that thing’s huge!
Somewhere out there a snooker player’s forum has a thread going “I hope that thing doesn’t end up wasted on bagpipes…”
Just for the sake of it how many chanters (or sets) would one get out of a log like this?
Hmm…at 11" across, assuming a blank is 1.5", you have roughly (11/1.5)^2pi/4 = 42ish (pi/4 for the ratio of a circle to a square). Then subtract off half the part bits on the circumference - 0.5pi11/1.5 = 10ish, so maybe room for ~30 across the face. Then you’re looking at a blank length of say, 18", giving 1012/18=6 full lengths, so 6*30 = 180 odd altogether.
Not accounting for wastage, of course, which I’d guess would be pretty high.
Where is it advertised for sale?
By my calculations, you should get one really big chanter out of it.
P.
Seeing as it has a whacking great crack across the middle, I’m afraid you might have to settle for two really big chanters…
It was up for sale by the owner of this website.
http://www.woodwiseuk.co.uk/
Mark
I have it on good authority that most Gabon ebony is nasty.
most Gabon ebony is nasty.
Not all of it though.
Nasty in what way Sam? Bad quality, illegally harvested or a pain to work with?
I know that it’s smelly.
Nasty in what way Sam? Bad quality, illegally harvested or a pain to work with?
I know that it’s smelly.
I can’t remember!
It was a quality aspect, but I can’t remember what. Maybe very splintery and brittle.
Anyway, it put me off. Aside from having to convert it.
So, Sam, what type of ebony is preferable, if you want an all/mostly-black ebony instrument? Gabon ebony is the only all-black variety of diospyros I ever see advertised.
Ceylon ebony is all black but appears to be nearly extinct – certainly rare commercially; Macassar ebony is gorgeous but it’s brown & black striped; and Black & White ebony is, obviously, black & white striped.
But maybe I’m relying too much on Google, and just don’t know where to look. 
Thanks,
Mick
My personal experience is that ebony from Madagascar is usually mostly black with a good consistent density and quality .
Mark
Thanks, Mark. Just did further Googling, and sure enough, Madagascar ebony is jet black.
And maybe this was implicit in your reply, but for other (fellow) exotic-lumber-newbies, I also learned that Madagascar ebony and Macassar ebony are two different woods, the first coming from SE Africa and the latter being from Indonesia (they’re Diospyros celebica and Diospyros perrieri, respectively). Guess I could have figured that out from their names.
In a different Googe result, I further learned that Madagascar is plagued by rampant, illegal logging. Anyone know of a reputable/responsible dealer in Madagascar ebony? (I’ve never seen it advertised, just Macassar.)
I get the sinking feeling that it’s probably impossible to get truly sustainably-harvested ebony (or rosewood for that matter). 
Which, I guess, is why CITES figures so large in this forum lately…
What the world really needs is an instrument-grade, ultra-hard wood that grows like a weed. Or even just like maple.
Cheers,
Mick