Wood Library - Mahogany

I guess none of them would be any good for carving. You really know your wood Gary.
Thanks for the post.

Dave

-- Dave Leitem,Butler,Pa.,http://dlcarver.etsy.com

Dave – I guess I left carving out because I don’t know how. It is excellent for carving. Chippendale
carved almost all his furniture.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

I’d love to learn more about mahogany! I’ve currently got a load of Peruvian mahogany, it’s clearly different from, say, the Phillipine mahogany, but I don’t know how it compares to other regions of Central or South America.

It’s a very open grain, so finishing really requires a pore filling process of some sort.

Also like a little more clarification on “it doesn’t splinter”... The wood I’ve got has been reclaimed from box beams, and I’ve nursed a number of nasty splinters from that process. Nothing like you get from, say, trying to carve or end-route Lyptus (which I’ve got splinters from right now, thought it’d make a good rasp handle…), but a little more on what your standards are would be neat!

Thanks!

-- Dan Lyke, Petaluma California, http://www.flutterby.net/User:DanLyke

Dan – By splinter I mean that when you break it, you won’t get long slivers. When you cut it you may get little chips on the cut edge that you can just wipe off with your fingers. It’s hard to explain. You just kind of know.

I had a friend that worked in a lumber mill feeding machines for about 15 years. He told me that Douglas fir gave him the most splinters of any wood.

Is your mahogany real hard and heavy? Say harder and heaver than oak, or closer to pine?

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

It’s definitely not as soft as pine, and it’s a much smaller grain, but it’s nowhere near as heavy as the eastern Maple or Massaranduba that I’ve been doing my other work in recently. My experience of oak is so varied that it’s hard to compare, but I’d say it’s lighter than a white oak, probably close to a lighter red oak.

-- Dan Lyke, Petaluma California, http://www.flutterby.net/User:DanLyke

Dan – It sounds like Santos Mahogany which has a fine grain. Hard to say for sure without seeing it.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

Gary, should special care be given when you route mahogany, someone once told me unless your bits are extremely sharp, it will really chatter ?

Thanks for info.

-- Jeff T in Westport CT.

Jeff – I have never found that to be true based on personal experience and I have been using mahogany almost exclusively for over 10 years.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.