Hand planning African Mahogany

[Rick Erickson]

Is this even possible? I've tried everything (HA frog, closed throat, super sharp blade, dampening the wood, etc). No matter what I do I get significant tearout. Any thoughts are extremely welcome.

[Mark Roderick]

Extremely tough wood to hand plane in my experience. This is where you reach for the sander.

[george wilson]

Is this striped mahogany? Plane straight across the board with a very sharp,fine cutting plane. This will make a surface without tearout,ready to scrape.

[Don C Peterson]

I'm working with some quarter sawn American Sycamore which is a bit softer but has the same kind of interlaced grain pattern and like George said, I've found that planing across the grain (or diagonally) helps a lot. Planing along the grain, no matter which way I tried produced horrible tear out.

[Greg Cole]

+2 to the comments from George and Don.
Both species mentioned here have been learning experiences for me.

[Terry Beadle]

I built two end tables out of African Mahogany and the only method I found that worked was to set my smoother for an extremely lite cut and then to finish any rough spots with two scrapers. One was set for an aggressive cut and the other for a finish cut.

I also paid particular attention to the direction changes in the grain. Each spot seemed to have it's own mind about what direction one used to smooth it.

I also resolved not to use African Mahogany ever again as it's not worth all the extra time it takes. It does look good under a few coats of laquer.

Good Luck!

[george wilson]

Striped mahogany looks striped because the tree grows in a left hand spiral for a while,then grows in a right hand spiral. The grain goes in opposite directions in those stripes,and will tear out no matter which way you plane it,so planing cross grain,scraping,or sanding are about the only answers.

[Rick Erickson]

All great comments. I believe some of it is stripped although I can't say for sure. I'm currently making a dovetail carcass for a chest and the dovetails are proud. I'm trying to plane them down and when they get close I'm getting into the body of the carcass and things go astray. I will try to hit them at an angle and then jump to the scraper. This will be tough though because the carcass is so big. I was going at it with a LN 5 1/2 and thought THAT was going to take me a while. This is definately one wood I will not restock in my inventory.

[Tom Vanzant]

Have you tried planing almond? Its grain is so interlocked, its like planing a braided hemp rope. It takes a lot of sandpaper to make it smooth once you get it flat.

[Prashun Patel]

Have you tried a card scraper? Lots o work, but it worked for me.

[Michael Faurot]

I'll second the comments made by George Wilson to work across the grain and scrape, and add another. Try a toothed blade (http://www.lie-nielsen.com/?pg=4). It looks like you've got a Lie-Nielsen 5-1/2 so you'd need part number BL-23-8T (http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?sku=5_5).

[george wilson]

Better not hold the plane at an angle,or it will still be ripping the wood. Hold it straight across. The toothed plane is a good thought,too.

[Danny Thompson]

The following thread contains a similar discussion.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=95203

The best solution for tearout on my recent A. Mahog. project was a high microbevel on a LV Low angle Jack and a mouth as tight as it would go.

Before (effective cutting angle 37):

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=99578&d=1225158138

Almost (effective cutting angle 52º):
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=99968&d=1225575398

After, with an effective cutting angle of 62º:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=99970&d=1225575428


An LN 102 block plane, also honed to a slightly cambered 62º effective angle, helped remove localized tearout that were too narrow for the LAJ. This was especially useful on striped boards where the LAJ left tearout on one set of stripes when I planed west, and the alternating set of stripes when I planed east. The exposed portion of the 102 blade was roughly the same width as the stripe.

Even with this improvement, there will be some sections that never go completely smooth. At some point you will have to break out the Random Orbit Sander or live with the tearout.

[Rick Erickson]

Danny, thanks for the pictures. Your grain appears much straighter than mine. I wonder if that has something to do with it. I'm using a LN 5 1/2 with a 55-degree frog. I might switch to my scraper plane to see if that helps.

[Rick Erickson]

I've never used a toothed blade. How smooth of a surface will that give me? I'm at the smoothing stage of my project.

[David Gendron]

The idea of the toothed blade is not to give you a smooth surface but one that will cooperate with the smoother on the folowing step... I think!

[Derek Cohen]

I'm coming in a little late.

Firstly, I echo George on planing across the grain. You can do this and follow up with a cabinet scraper.

Or, stop mucking about and use a very high cutting angle on a BU smoother (say, 65 degrees) or use a scraper plane.

Welcome to my world!

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Michael Faurot]

I've never used a toothed blade. How smooth of a surface will that give me? I'm at the smoothing stage of my project.

It won't give you a smooth surface. ;) What the toothing blade will do is cut very narrow channels in the wood. This is then followed up with a regular smoother, which then takes down the high spots left by the toothing blade. The surface left by the toothing blade is such that a smoother can clean it up without tear out.

Use of this technique requires two planes. One for the toothing blade and one as a regular smoother. Make a pass over the surface with the toothing blade plane. Now switch to the smoother and take down the surface created by the toothing blade. This may take a few cycles where you switch back and forth between the two planes.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Is this even possible? I've tried everything (HA frog, closed throat, super sharp blade, dampening the wood, etc). No matter what I do I get significant tearout. Any thoughts are extremely welcome.

Have you tried skewing the angle of the plane and coming in at an angle?

That's what I do with squirrelly wood.

[Danny Thompson]

You are right, Rick, that my grain was straight, But even with the straight grain, a 50-odd bevel was not enough. I agree with Derek, get into the 60's.

You could achieve this using your 55º high angle frog by putting a 5-10º back-bevel on the iron. That, or switch to a cabinet scraper.

[george wilson]

Straight across is the only direction to plane wood that has grain going in both directions.

What happens when you are smooth planing the toothing plane ridges away,and you hit bottom? A new,big tear out!! Stick to cross grain,and scrape later. African mahogany ( not a real mahogany) hasn't the strength in its grain for the grain to have any resistance to tearing out at the drop of a hat. Personally,I don't like or use it.

[David Keller NC]

I've never used a toothed blade. How smooth of a surface will that give me? I'm at the smoothing stage of my project.

Rick - The traditional method here is the use of a "regular" plane (standard planing angle, non-toothed blade) to straighten the plank (removing cupping, twisting, etc...) and remove very coarse milling marks, use a toothed smoother as the "surfacing" tool, and then use a scraper to remove the tooth marks. This sequence was demonstrated in one of Roy Underhill's Woodwright's shop episodes - I believe it was called "Hollywood Spectacular", and the general subject was preparing shop-made veneers for the traditional hammer-veneering process.

The toothing plane to scraper sequence is also mentioned in period sources.

One comment about African "mahogany" - I use a lot of mahogany, both the genuine South American kind and the so-called "mahogany" from Africa (usually Khaya species), and there's more to the difficult-to-plane nature of the african stuff than just the macro appearance of the ribbon-stripe. The grain of Khaya species is interlocked on the micro-level as well, which makes it a real bear to work with a handplane or other food-powered cutting tools. This is one reason why Khaya is quite unpopular with carvers, and we'll pay 2 to 3 times the price to get genuine South American mahogany.

That said, the finished appearance of African mahogany is really close to figured South American mahogany - one would have a very hard time telling the difference without cutting into it. However, one characteristic of Khaya vs. Sweitenia is rot resistance - Khaya is not terribly good at resisting outdoor conditions, but Sweitenia ("genuine" mahogany) is excellent for this purpose.