Mahogany

[Paul B. Cresti]

Question for all the wood folk....I am designing and fabricating a complete new front entry: sidelights, eliptical transom, door, frame,etc. I will be using mahogany. I have been looking for "genuine" mahogany, the same species as Honduras not the African variety. I have found a source but it is a 2 hour drive...today I found a place that has real genuine Honduras as it was the last stock some old ww'r had from a long time ago. It was harvested in the 1950's and they are huge planks...so would you pay $14/bf for it????

[Brent Smith]

Hi Paul,

That's the going price for it up here.

[Gary Herrmann]

Maybe, based on how you define huge, but I haven't seen Honduran here in awhile. Granted, I haven't really been looking, but if you're talking 8/4 - 12/4 and 12" wide - I'd think it's worth the price.

I have a bunch of African I got from someone that was moving for $1 per bd foot several years ago, but Honduran works sooo much more nicely.

[Frank Drew]

Paul,

"Huge" planks from the 1950's could well mean really huge, like 30" wide or more; mahogany used to be available in this country 36" wide... 12" stuff, those were the offcuts!

Certainly well into the 1980s you could still find 20-24" stock; my last stash purchase in the mid '80s, I had to buy a minumum of 200 bf, but the price was $3/bf :eek:! and it was all over 20" wide and a good 5/4 thick.

Let us know just what's involved in this lot. BTW, I totally agree with the preference expressed for S. American ("genuine") mahogany vs African; from my experience there's no comparison. It's possible that this is a really, really primo bundle of lumber, back before all the good stuff had been logged out.

[Cody Colston]

If the planks are indeed 30" wide, then that's the going price. Honduras Mahogany can still be bought from many places but the price really goes up with width and thickness.

You can even still buy Cuban Mahogany (Swietenia Mahagani) that is harvested in South Florida from downed trees but it's pricey...really pricey. However, it is the true Mahogany as related to woodworking. The other varieties are all lesser quality, even Honduras (Swietenia Macrophylla).

[Jim King]

This should help. Here is the export pricing for Genuine Mahogany as in Honduras Mahogany. Scroll down to Peru and you will find the price at a little over $2 a bf for perfect flawless lumber 4/4 and 8/4 8 foot long and longer.. A cubic meter is the standard pricing and there is 424 bf per cubic meter.

The buyers no longer want large planks 20 or 30 inches wide and 6 inches thick as the processing in the States costs to much. Mahogany is rarley cut less that 4 feet in dia..

http://www.lifeforestry.com/cms/upload/pdf/itto/ITTO-01-15-Aug09.pdf

[Paul B. Cresti]

thanks guys...yes the slabs are in the 30" range and I believe 16ft long, true 5/4. Each slab I was looking at was over 35bf itself. There are even 16/4 slabs available. The grain is real tight and I did not see any checks, knots...silch. It was quite a site.

[Jeffrey Makiel]

That doesn't sound like fun to work with. Every cut would have my heart in my throat.

-Jeff :)

[Prashun Patel]

Question for all the wood folk....I am designing and fabricating a complete new front entry: sidelights, eliptical transom, door, frame,etc. I will be using mahogany. I have been looking for "genuine" mahogany, the same species as Honduras not the African variety. I have found a source but it is a 2 hour drive...today I found a place that has real genuine Honduras as it was the last stock some old ww'r had from a long time ago. It was harvested in the 1950's and they are huge planks...so would you pay $14/bf for it????

Hi Paul. Which place did you find?

[Matt Day]

As a side note, there's a good article on Mahogany in the most recent FWW. Types, prices, differences, uses, etc.

[Brent Smith]

thanks guys...yes the slabs are in the 30" range and I believe 16ft long, true 5/4. Each slab I was looking at was over 35bf itself. There are even 16/4 slabs available. The grain is real tight and I did not see any checks, knots...silch. It was quite a site.

It sounds like you could be looking at Pattern Grade Mahogany. If so, it is beautiful stuff to work with power tools, but especially with hand tools.

[Jim German]

You could always take a drive down to Hearne Hardwoods, southwest of Philly. Might save a buck or two per bf, and they have a ton of selection. There price list is here (http://www.hearnehardwoods.com/hardwoods/pricelist/pricelist.html)

[Frank Drew]

Paul,

Back up the truck; honestly.

[Peter Quinn]

That is the going price for it here in CT, though it has been getting rather scarce, or is less seldom stocked at those prices in any event. Mostly we are awash in African, and while some of that is decent, much of it is simply crap, and none of it is as good as Honduran. If I needed some I wouldn't hesitate to pay that price local to me, and I would call 2 hours local enough for a good price on a somewhat rare wood.

[Don Bullock]

For me price is always relative to the grain plus size and rarity of the wood. By that I mean that if I find boards that are the size I need for a project and the grain pattern is what I want, I don't worry to much about price unless it's too expensive for my budget. If you have truly found a stash of "genuine mahogany, the same species as Honduras not the African variety" from the '50s that is what you need for your project and you can afford to buy it then what are you waiting for?

[Frank Drew]

One piece entry and passage frame and panel door panels, with all the panels from the same board and arranged one above the other as they grew in the tree; fabulous matched dining table boards (just about unheard of these days); side board and sofa table tops....

OMG! I'd better stop fantasizing, I'll give myself a stroke!!

[Paul B. Cresti]

Hey I got him down on price due to the quantity I want....100bf @ $12.5b/f....I just might not be able to control myself. I need to figure out how to load them on my truck! I have a short bed Silverado, due to the crew cab, plus the rack is only over the bed :eek:

[lowell holmes]

Houston proces are at $9 for Honduras mahogany.

[Rafael Carias]

Hey I got him down on price due to the quantity I want....100bf @ $12.5b/f....I just might not be able to control myself. I need to figure out how to load them on my truck! I have a short bed Silverado, due to the crew cab, plus the rack is only over the bed :eek:

Taking in consideration that that mahogany is very likely true Honduran mahogany you got good deal if you ask me.

You should rent a trailer to transport that stuff.

[Pat Germain]

Gee, I don't think I've ever seen Honduras mahogany. My local suplliers carry only the African variety. I just bought a piece of the African stuff yesterday. It looks nice to me, but is there really a big difference between the two varieties?

[Peter Quinn]

Gee, I don't think I've ever seen Honduras mahogany. My local suplliers carry only the African variety. I just bought a piece of the African stuff yesterday. It looks nice to me, but is there really a big difference between the two varieties?

Yes, in fact there is. Honduran is more durable to the weather by far, tends to be a bit heavier, the color is more consistent, the grain is not quite as porous and is far less erratic than African. Honduran ages to a beautiful deep reddish brown, African washes to a strange orange color before it washes to grey brown. Honduran is more stable when ripping, some of that African has so much tension it can be plain old scary to rip. And African tends to chip, crack and generally defect during milling in ways I have never seen from Honduran. Genuine SA mahogany is superior in pretty much every way I can think of except price. This doesn't mean African is terrible wood, but it is more challenging and less user friendly than the real stuff. I have never used Cuban, the 19th centuries version of "the real stuff". That must be nicer still.

[Pat Germain]

Thanks, Peter. I'm going to have to look for some Honduran mahogany.

The African stuff I just bought is for a military shadow box. I don't think the customer cares if it's African. And, more importantly, I think it would be difficult to charge the appropriate price for the Honduran mahogany. I'm sure the examples we can find online are African mahogany and that's what people go by.

[Peter Quinn]

Pat, I should add that there is significant variation within the range of African mahogany in terms of working properties and color, so it is worth learning to select boards carefully when working with African. Some of it in fact behaves very much like Honduran, and can approximate its color quite closely. My boss sells and uses tens of thousands of BF of the stuff each year, so I have had the opportunity to learns a bit about its properties.

Look out for flat-sawn wide boards with crazy swirls of different colors, these are not the boards to split for smaller pieces. With the vertical grain material, look out for boards with pronounced ribbony bands parallel with the grain. These tend to indicate boards with significant tension. We make a lot of trim components, and these boards are fine when left wide, or for table tops and such, but they are not appropriate for bars in glass doors or window parts, and they make terrible stiles. Anything where they will be cut and milled into small precise parts poses a problem. Also look out for very heavy dark brown boards that look quite close to Sapele. They also act quite like sapele, by which I mean very unstable. I have trimmed less than 1/4" off of a 5" wide board to reach final width only to have it twist to the point of useless and bind in the saw. Use a splitter and keep your eyes open for tension.

I usually pick vertical grain boards in the 6"-12" wide range, I look for medium color and a weight similar to poplar for its size. I also look for consistent even grain with no ribbons, the sort of plain grain typical of mahogany, for frame parts and any delicate parts. For panels and table top type things there are less problems, but leave room for sanding when dimensioning the stuff, always try to follow the grain when planing or jointing and use the best orientation, switch directions if one won't work. The stuff tears out in a very unpredictable manner, and can be very challenging with hand planes given all the switch backs in grain direction. I find very sharp tools and very light passes gives me the best advantage.

Good luck and have fun with it. Also, I find the cinnamon like smell of the dust to be offensive and nauseating, so I always wear a dust mask with African. It seams to let out a fine powdery dust that the collectors have trouble capturing.

[Jim King]

Here is a good site explaining "Khaya wood" from West Africa commonly called "African Mahogany" . The woods exported as a group and called African Mahogany can very substaintially in working properties etc..
http://books.google.com.pe/books?id=-nw-mZQ0kcEC&pg=PT334&lpg=PT334&dq=khaya++wood&source=bl&ots=NNjeiRakZC&sig=Q7ijoQQ1x4ZZ-P5Q5zJIKB8g5oE&hl=es&ei=j2iRStX9MoOEtgfu2fDOBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8#v=onepage&q=khaya%20%20wood&f=false

" Swietenia " or " Big leaf Mahogany" is exported from Central and South America quite honestly with only a small portion of the total now being look alike species due to lack of demand and the orders being easy to fill.

Contrary to the propaganda there is a lot of large Mahogany available in the Amazon but the buyer demand has dropped to almost the point where it is not a marketable species and as a result the price has dropped equally. Boards and planks of flawless grade better than any grade in the hardwood grading rules are down to $2.50 and less and are still dropping.

Spanish Cedar has had the same price freefall.

[David Keller NC]

Hey I got him down on price due to the quantity I want....100bf @ $12.5b/f....I just might not be able to control myself. I need to figure out how to load them on my truck! I have a short bed Silverado, due to the crew cab, plus the rack is only over the bed :eek:

Paul - This may seem an odd bit of advice, but you didn't buy enough. Old Brazilian mahogany (likely if it was brought into the country in the 1950s) is really sought after by instrument makers, and the older it is, the more valuable it is. Just check out some of the popular luthery sites and you'll see what I mean - it's worth about $60 a b.f. when cut into book-matched, instrument-grade thicknesses of about 1/4" or so. And in the case of high-grade mahogany, almost 100% of it will be instrument grade.

Seriously, dude - this is worth maxing out a credit card and getting a bank loan for. Mahogany has continued to spiral upward in price, and while the stuff from Peru is quite nice, it has much larger pores than the true Brazilian stuff.

And if you're considering this, you'd be wise to keep the location and seller to yourself, or you may find your "secret source" tapped out in just one Saturday afternoon.

[Jim King]

I just ran across a photo of a barge of Mahogany and Spanish Cedar coming down the Rio Javari. This river is the border between Brazil and Peru where the majority of the Mahogany comes from and is the most productive Mahogany area in the Amazon.

The left side is Brazil and the right Peru. The wood ended up in a village called Benjamin Constant and was milled there and loaded on the Peruvian Amazon Line for shipment to the States. I used to live in that town on the Colombian, Peruvian and Brazilian border.

99% of the Mahogany harvested on this river was illegal and when the Peruvian authorities interviened the smugglers would say it was Brazilian wood and the same for Brazilian authorities. The forestry police have no boats or resources to verify what is what.

All of this wood was harvested by indigionous peoples illegally according to the new laws recently created . These logs are cut and rolled out to the rivers and floated to the nearest sawmill which can take up to a month floating down river and living on the barge under a sheet of plastic. The harvest is once a year when the rivers are high and the majority of the of the labor is child labor as they earn the money to feed themselves and the family.

[Paul B. Cresti]

Paul - This may seem an odd bit of advice, but you didn't buy enough. Old Brazilian mahogany (likely if it was brought into the country in the 1950s) is really sought after by instrument makers, and the older it is, the more valuable it is. Just check out some of the popular luthery sites and you'll see what I mean - it's worth about $60 a b.f. when cut into book-matched, instrument-grade thicknesses of about 1/4" or so. And in the case of high-grade mahogany, almost 100% of it will be instrument grade.

.

Funny you say that the 16/4 slabs have been bought by a luthier. He seems to come in every so often and buys another.

Yes I may increase the amount I buy but unfortunately I am not made of money and have plenty of other things on my list

[Peter Quinn]

Cool link there Jim, explains a lot regarding what I have seen regarding wide variations in performance of Khaya. So it doesn't all behave the same because it isn't! Makes sense. I can tell you that boards with the interlocked grain (what I know as the ribbony stuff) can sure be a problem every step of the way. Interesting info regarding the SA varieties. I have read the same thing in WoodSHop news regarding the myth of a SA mahogany shortage. The claim is that although the price has dropped so far, whole salers here in the states are sitting on so much already bought they will not drop the price or cannot, so the price remains constant and the myth of scarcity prevails.

I can tell you my boss has all but stopped ordering it and most contractors are subbing african or spanish cedar unless not possible to meet specs. Strange economics in the wood market I guess?