Ebony is dense as heck and should wear like steel. I added an 1/2" extension years ago to a gun I had but instead of running the grain long wise I ran it the same direction of the stock. That was a mistake. That meant I had to work the end grain of both sides of the extension, the stock side and the side which fit against my shoulder. I did not want to trim the factory stock and loose the slight curvature it had and that made fitting it a pain in the butt. It took for ever to cut that end grain. It looked really good when I got done but it took me thirty hours at least to complete it.
Then checkering ebony is no fun either and end grain ebony is worse. I ended up buying and using an electric checkering system. You had to cut every groove to almost full depth, one line at a time. It took four passes with the machine and then a couple hand passes by hand, when done, to even everything up. That was the last ebony extension I ever did but if I had a gun which needs one I would do it again but not cross grain wise. Live and learn as they say.
