Brazilian mahogany?

[Mark Berenbrok]

I'm able to buy some Brazilian mahogany for $5 a BF. 5/4, 6/4, and 8/4 stuff is available. I've used mostly walnut, cherry, and heartpine for my projects - kitchen tables, beds, and cabinets. I've used Honduras mahogany for a few small projects and use handtools for my finish and detail work. Has anyone used Brazilian mahogany and what's your experience how it machines and finishes? Thanks

[Dave Anderson NH]

Mark, in real life most of what has been sold as Hondouras Mahogany for the last 20 years has come from Brazil, Chile, and Bolivia. The vast tracts of Swietiana mahogani that were in Hondouras and Belize (Br Hondouras) were heavily overcut starting in the 1700s and continuing right up until the 1950s. Both countries have almost completely eliminated exports for mahogany.

If indeed what is being sold is Swetiana mahogani instead of some other oddball species, the price is fantastic. Remember that there are ove 100 species of true mahoganies in the Swetiana genus and the properties are all over the map.

[David Keller NC]

Brazilian mahogany is "Honduras mahogany". There are two commonly-used species of south american mahogany - swietenia macrophylla ("bigleaf" or "honduran" mahogany) and swietenia mahagoni ("west indian", "small leaf" or "cuban" mahogany). In general, Brazilian mahogany is the macrophylla kind that grows relatively deep in the rain forest. Small-leaf mahogany is generally associated with the coasts. It's highly prized - upwards of $30 a board foot, depending on quality, and most of it now comes from blow-downs on the idland of Cuba. Most of the high-style, high-end early American mahogany furniture was made of small-leaf mahogany, and it was so highly preferred that it was virtually wiped out throughout its range in the carribean.

If you've high-quality honduran mahogany being offered (large boards, no sapwood, small, evenly distributed grain), $5 is very cheap - it goes for about $10 - $15 retail for the high-end stuff.

[Frank Drew]

What Dave and David said -- the Central and South American versions are what are correctly called mahogany; all those others such as African mahogany (Khaya et al.) are imposters, IMO, and I wish they'd stop calling themselves mahoganies.

S. macrophylla (sold as "genuine" mahogany, or Honduras mahogany, etc.) is the real mahogany and is usually great stuff, but what we call Cuban mahogany and variations such as Santo Domingo mahogany (S. mahogoni) is the real REAL mahogany :D. You can occasionally find S. macrophylla that rivals Cuban in density, depth of color and all around wonderfulness, which is nice since the Cuban is either unavailable or ruinously expensive when and if a small amount does show up.

There are very few timbers that look as good under finish as real mahogany; most factory produced mahogany furniture is from somewhat inferior wood with a terrible stain/finish.

[mike holden]

Just be sure it IS mahogany, and not the mahogany substitute Lyptus.
VERY different materials in working, but they look identical.
Be careful.
Mike

[David Keller NC]

"Just be sure it IS mahogany, and not the mahogany substitute Lyptus.
VERY different materials in working, but they look identical."

Indeed, good point. I've caught a few timber suppliers trying to sell this stuff as mahogany - the scent is radically different (think Vic's Vapor Rub). Unfortunately, some african species also get sold as the genuine article, but distinguishing them from S.A. mahogany isn't easy from appearance alone. The true test is carving - most African mahogany that I've seen and worked with has severely interlocked grain, which means that it doesn't work well with hand tools, particularly carving tools.

[Johnny Kleso]

I hope its OK to post this link
http://www.exoticwoodsoftheworld.com/

My friend Justin in TN has gunine Mahagany for $3.00 BF at his ebay store he knows and sells tons of wood at super low prices.. link to store at his website..

Just say you know Johnny Kleso aka rarebear and ask if can give you a deal on shipping or the wood cost..

few years back I bought 669 bf of FAS Af mahonany for $669 and $229 shipping I cant buy pine that cheap :)

[Luke Townsley]

I live in the Dominican Republic. Here, Mahogany is considered THE wood of choice for trim, cabinets, and about everything else. One of the main reasons is that everyone "knows" that termites won't bother mahogany.

However, a lot of people like to do things on the cheap. You will find just about everything being passed off as mahogany. Some of the "substitutes" are actually very good working woods and others are fairly poor for cabinetry. As was mentioned, it is all over the map.

The good mahogany is said to be one of the best woods there is as far as workability for cabinets. Here it runs about $10/board foot for reasonably decent stuff. I suspect that a lot of what is imported here is cut by irresponsible sawyers, but I really don't know.

[John Downey]

Just be sure it IS mahogany, and not the mahogany substitute Lyptus.
VERY different materials in working, but they look identical.
Be careful.
Mike

Easy to distinguish, Lyptus will just about break your back lifting a board, the corners will actually cut your hands, and it gives you about the nastiest splinters around, because they are soooo small and rather frequent. But it is a good mahogany substitute, a bit coarser grained and the pores tend to be "longer" on a cut face (really shows up if filling grain with a dark filler). It does make about the best jig wood though, hard as nails, seems to stay straight, and takes wax really nicely. I have some router table fences made out of it and plan to make a shooting board out of some more scraps. It would probably make a fine hand plane as well.

[Luke Townsley]

If someone is offering "mahogany" at an ultra-low price, my guess is that it is actually likely to be a wood that is known here in the Dominican Republic as andiroba. It isn't a *bad* wood per se, but it bears little resemblance to mahogany except for its color.

It would be sort of like buying oak and getting southern yellow pine.