In article . com,
wrote:

Dear woodturners,

I am desperatly looking for a 17th century method for the dyeing of
pearwood for a restauration project.

I can find descriptions saying: boil the pearwood to imitate ebony.
However regular cooking does not help. Probably there needs to be
something in the water, but who knows what?

Can anybody here help me?


Sounds familiar... ran across a couple of likely-looking recipes.
The use of vinegar rings a bell

[quote from
http://www.bt3central.com/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=9487]
I have used the steel wool and vinigar approach described he
http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_bas...white_oak.html


I found another link to "woodcrafters.ca"; the article is no longer at
the sight, apparently, but Google's cached version seems to work:

http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:...dianwoodcrafte
rs.ca/ebonizing2005.htm+ebonizing&hl=en

- essentially you make a rusty-vinegar solution, and use that as the
stain. (Hmm, be interesting to see what the actual chemical result
of that is)

Anything based on aniline dye would be inappropriate, of course, but
they seem to be the only other "ebonizing" links I could find.