Working Mahogany

[Phil Clark]

This past weekend I attended Darrell Peart’s G & G details workshop. It was the first time I had worked with mahogany. I’m used to maple, birch, oak and walnut. My wood handling habits in the shop have developed building with those woods so I was pretty frustrated with the mahogany. It seemed that every time I picked a piece up from the bench the first thing I had to do was sand out another scratch or squirt water on another dimple. I’ve always thought that I had “soft” hands but now I’m thinking otherwise. Am I alone with this experience with mahogany? Are there mahoganies that are harder than others?

[Andrew Williams]

African Mahogany is a real PITA. Does not plane well. Sanding leaves marks. I suggest a scraper.

[David Weaver]

This past weekend I attended Darrell Peart’s G & G details workshop. It was the first time I had worked with mahogany. I’m used to maple, birch, oak and walnut. My wood handling habits in the shop have developed building with those woods so I was pretty frustrated with the mahogany. It seemed that every time I picked a piece up from the bench the first thing I had to do was sand out another scratch or squirt water on another dimple. I’ve always thought that I had “soft” hands but now I’m thinking otherwise. Am I alone with this experience with mahogany? Are there mahoganies that are harder than others?

Can't say too much other than it's significantly softer than hard maple, Oak and Walnut (in terms of domestics), so you'll just have to be more gentle with it when you're working with it. I don't know about Birch, I've never worked with it, but it's probably softer than that, too. Some African mahoganies are much harder than what you'd find in the standard dinner tables made in the 60s or whatever.

This page has an interesting chart, though it's not complete. Note that I'm not in any way affiliated with it.

http://www.thevirtualshowroom.com/HWD/SldWd/SWMisc/hardwood_hardness_chart.htm

[Mike Henderson]

African Mahogany is a real PITA. Does not plane well. Sanding leaves marks. I suggest a scraper.
I absolutely agree about African Mahogany. Honduran mahogany, on the other hand, works well but is getting really expensive. Carves very nicely, also

Mike

[Brian Penning]

The African mahogany rocker I recently completed didn't give me too much trouble and I would work with it again. Did get tearout on the jointer initially until I could figure out which way the grain was oriented but other than that I liked it.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=56019

[Phil Clark]

David - thanks for posting the hardwood hardness chart. I was surprised to see african mahogany being harder tha yellow cedar. I just glued up a yellow cedard storm door and had very little trouble handling it by comparison to the african mahogany. I do see there are mahoganies on the chart that are considerably harder tha A/M - now to start sourcing.

[Don Bullock]

This past weekend I attended Darrell Peart’s G & G details workshop....

Wow, what an experience that must have been. I really admire Darrell Peart’s work and have an autographed copy of his book on G & G.

As for mahogany, I haven't worked with any recently. I worked on Honduran mahogany many years ago. I found it very hard, but easy to work. As has been stated, it is getting very expensive if it can be found. What we have to work with now is not the same wood that G & G used.

[Randy Kramer]

Bah, you think that is hard?????

Try keeping 250bf of it nice on a sportfishing boat with 20 people hitting it with fishing poles, sinkers, and hooks.......:eek: :mad:

[John Schreiber]

Try keeping 250bf of it nice on a sportfishing boat with 20 people hitting it with fishing poles, sinkers, and hooks.......:eek: :mad:
Oh, you've been using the crowd method of distressing your mahogany. I'll bet that works well and get s rid of that brand new look quickly.

[Jeffrey Makiel]

My current project is using African Mahogany. The worker at the lumber yard did not have very positive words about it. However, I've found that African mahogany machines and sands perfectly well. My gripe is with the mahogany veneer plywood. On top of finding small brad nails within the substrate plys, (see my post "Nails in Plywood", the veneer is so thin that sanding is almost impractical. I've already sanded thru the veneer on one side of the vanity which will required some crafty repair during finishing.

[Randy Kramer]

Oh, you've been using the crowd method of distressing your mahogany. I'll bet that works well and get s rid of that brand new look quickly.
I forgot to mention the soaking it takes. Salt water, then soap and bleach---blood and scales--squid; then it drys again............................