Taking on a legacy project, my first time working with mahogany

[Jaylan Sears]

Hello all,

I am still fairly new to the forum, but I wanted to make this thread to document my progress as well as ask for advice along the way with what will certainly be my biggest and most advanced project to date.

A little background first: I started woodworking in my spare time in the summer of 2020, mostly to refinish some used furniture and make some small items for my wife and our apartment (and our future house) and also a few gifts. Most of what I've made has been wall art (a simple 3-tiered cross, a key rack, an outdoor address sign with a planter box, etc.), basic cutting boards, coaster sets, a blanket ladder, and a carrom board. So basically nothing with any complex joint work (just miters).

My wife's grandfather was very heavy into woodworking and he had just started a hope chest for her using mahogany. He unexpectedly passed a couple weekends ago (peacefully in his sleep thankfully), and I have been asked if I will finish the hope chest. We loved him very much and it feels very special to get to do this! He was a great Christian man who I looked up to, and we wanted to one day work on a few things together, but unfortunately work and school never gave us the time. As you might be able to tell, I am quite sentimental, and this project means a lot to me. I am a little nervous however, because I don't want to mess up. I am planning to buy some small pieces/scraps of mahogany to practice routing and joint work with, as well as finishing.

We know he had plans, but have not gone through everything yet to find them. I'll share once I have them. I haven't been around the wood but for a couple of minutes so far, but from what I can tell, he was not super far into it yet, just one of the corners of the body was done it looked like.

My goal is to follow the plans he had and have the finished project be exactly what his intention was for it. I will have access to his shed and tools as well. I am pretty confident with my finishing abilities, but I am going to want to practice jointwork and routing for sure.

Just wanted to kickstart the thread and maybe stir up some discussion. Is there any big advice you may have? I understand there are different species of mahogany, I would like to try to find out which it is.

Thanks for reading!

Jaylan

[Patrick Kane]

Its an unfortunate circumstance, but its nice there is someone to pick up the mantle and finish the project. My first advice would be to not work on this partially completed project. You havent built a piece of furniture yet, and i dont know that you should practice on the one that counts. Go make a shaker end table, or something pretty simple/basic first. Then, make something else that is slightly more challenging or complex. Finally, after you have a few things under your built, come back and finish this chest. Or, get some inexpensive wood and build the exact same chest before coming back for the mahogany one.

[Stan Calow]

Could you explain more what you mean by this: ". . . just one of the corners of the body was done it looked like."

Note that there are several different woods that are sold as mahogany, so that it can be more difficult to match grain and tones than you think.

[Jaylan Sears]

Its an unfortunate circumstance, but its nice there is someone to pick up the mantle and finish the project. My first advice would be to not work on this partially completed project. You havent built a piece of furniture yet, and i dont know that you should practice on the one that counts. Go make a shaker end table, or something pretty simple/basic first. Then, make something else that is slightly more challenging or complex. Finally, after you have a few things under your built, come back and finish this chest. Or, get some inexpensive wood and build the exact same chest before coming back for the mahogany one.

Yes that may be a good alternative. I kind of like the idea of a shaker end table, I'll keep that in mind.

[Jaylan Sears]

Could you explain more what you mean by this: ". . . just one of the corners of the body was done it looked like."

Note that there are several different woods that are sold as mahogany, so that it can be more difficult to match grain and tones than you think.

There were two boards that had the joint already mocked up, I forget if it was box or dovetail, and judging by their dimensions compared to the rest of the stock, I was guessing that it was one of the sides and the front or back of the chest's main body. Hope that's a bit clearer!

And yeah, I'm hoping that either 1) I don't ruin any boards because it looked like it all matched well; or 2) I can find out which lumber yard he bought it all from and see if they still stock some, it wasn't but maybe a year ago I believe that he bought it all.

Main priority right now is getting the plans so I can know what I need to learn!