Mahogany gloat

[Jacob Reverb]

Not really a gloat so to speak, but it sure made me happy and I had to pass it along to the Creek:

My weekend project was to cut up and assemble a speaker cabinet for my guitar amp. It'll hold two 12" speakers...in parlance I guess it's called a 2x12. Anyway, I used 15/32" okume plywood for the case with 45° miters on the corners and the front panel grooved in, all glued and gunned together.

I wanted to cover the plywood edges so I dug around in the "extras" pile and found some old Honduran mahogany from a boat I re-did 10 or 15 years ago, and since the okume plywood appears to use mahogany for the surface veneer (what does "okume" wood look like, anyway?) I decided to rabbet and miter the mahogany to cover the edge of the plywood.

Gosh, I had forgotten what a joy mahogany is to cut ... with power tools, hand tools or anything else. It's soft like white pine, but it just machines and cuts so nicely!

I've recently gotten into carving, so I'm gonna save some of that mahogany for relief carvings.

I would love to have just a PILE of mahogany to work with...I think it's the nicest wood I've ever worked with. My Dad (late in his life) said that he liked working cherry best of all, so I'll have to get some of that to try. (Never used it much.)

I just wish mahogany wasn't $5+/bf!

Anyway, that's my weekend gloat. I hope ya'll are having some of your own...dig around in that "extras" pile, you never know what you might unearth!

Jacob.

[Frank Drew]

Jacob,

I don't think genuine Mahogany (Swietenia mahogoni or macrophylla) is the only good wood for furniture making, but I think it's the all-around best wood if you add up all it's good qualities (appearance under finish of the good stuff, available sizes, workability, etc.). I just love the stuff. There's certainly some boring-looking Mahogany, and some dreary older Mahogany furniture with that awful almost purple stain on it, but a good-looking piece is hard to beat and has a natural luster largely missing from many otherwise nice woods.

I haven't bought any in years, but I thought it was selling for more than $5+/bf, when and if you can find it (meaning Honduras or other Central/South American Mahogany, not Philippine or African or the like.) I've got a small stash of wide (20"+) stuff that I bought years ago from Thompson Mahogany, a wholesaler in Philadelphia, for the now hard-to-believe price of $3/bf; I assume it would now retail for north of $10.

[Mike Henderson]

I've never seen any Swietenia mahogoni (often called Cuban Mahogany) offered for sale (except small pieces offered for turning) - maybe some woodworkers grab it when a tree is cut in Florida. There's probably some speciality wood suppliers that offer it. I imagine it's pretty expensive.

The Honduras mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) is generally available around here, and the price is less than $10/bf. I've bought some recently and don't remember exactly what I paid, but I'm pretty sure it was under $10/bf. But that's not the super wide stuff Frank was referring to.

Mike

[Scott duprat]

It's probably been posted here before, but you can buy cuban Mahogany...check the prices though. Pretty neat set up they have.

http://www.bluemoonexoticwood.com/index1.html

Scott

[Jack Briggs]

Blue Moon Mahogany's lumber is plantation grown in Asia. I have not seen any samples of their product, but I do have some genuine Cuban mahogany fallen from hurricane Andrew in '92. Looks a lot like Honduras mahogany, only much smaller and tighter grain. Almost like nice old cherry. Beautiful stuff!

[Peter Quinn]

My local supplier carries 'Pattern grade" honduran mahogany from Thompston in Phili, I think under 9" sells for around $9.50/bf, prices go as high as $11.50/bf on wider and thicker stock. They have boards as wide as 30" and thicknesses up to 16/4!

The cabinet shop I was working in last year was at the tail end of a large job where the client specified Honduran Mahogany for just about every surface. There were a LOT of off cuts and an amazing amount of material going in the burn pile. I used to park my van outside the loading dock and toss any significant scrap in the back, they started calling me the SEAGULL! I have hundreds of lineal feet of 12-16' X 8/4 X 2"-4" cutoffs from the straight line saw alone that were headed for the dumpster, now they are headed for custom lattice for my home, windows, and table legs!

I made my wife a TV stand out of some, used some reclaimed 'wormy' mahogany (comes from old building timbers in SA) for the top, man does that stuff glow. She's commented that it seems to actually become more beautiful with age, getting more brown/red and even toned.

I have to agree, real mahogany is a rel pleasure to work with.

[Frank Drew]

I do have some genuine Cuban mahogany fallen from hurricane Andrew in '92. Looks a lot like Honduras mahogany, only much smaller and tighter grain. Almost like nice old cherry. Beautiful stuff!

Jack,

About the last time I saw a reference to Cuban Mahogany for sale was in a FWW article about wood from trees blown down in that hurricane; the guy who wrote the article salvaged an amazing amount of large logs, racing ahead of the cleanup crews to save the wood from destruction.

I've only worked Cuban once; it was the core material on a Rosewood veneered table top and I was knocked out by how hard and dense it was. As you say, beautiful stuff.

Peter,

For a time a small millworking shop backed up to my shop and I'd occasionally get their Mahogany offcuts -- wide pieces of 6-8/4, perfect for turning shallow bowls and platters. They were glad to have me take them but until they saw that they could actually be useful material they considered it like sheetrock offcuts, just stuff for the dumpster.