# 100 year old 4/4 mahogany bought, $3.95/bf



## wwbob (Jul 12, 2010)

My local hardwood store had a bunch of 4/4 mahogany. Story is the Albuquerque High School installed the mahogany as bleacher seats in 1912. Reclaimed as the high school got new bleachers. Thru holes for bolts every 24 and 40 inches on some with nice widths from 7 to 11 inches. Got a couple boards 8 inches wide and 40 inches of clean wood. My first time to work with mahogany. I think I will probably be spoiled.


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## JJohnston (May 22, 2009)

Is this store in Albuquerque?

Edit: never mind. Dammit, why would they ship it there instead of selling it here?


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## wwbob (Jul 12, 2010)

The store is Timber Woodworking in Mesa Arizona, suburb of Phoenix. As of last night, 13SEP10, they had only a dozen or so boards.

The project is the Arts and Craftsman style bench on the cover of Oct. 2010 issue of Wood magazine. The design doesn't have any real long or real wide boards. The design is simple enough for me and displays the hardwood nicely.


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## wwbob (Jul 12, 2010)

Heard on 20SEP10, Monday, that the hardwood store has more of this mahogany. Hearsay evidence, I won't get a chance to be certain until Friday.


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## wwbob (Jul 12, 2010)

On 30SEP10 Timber Woodworking brought out a new palette of this mahogany. They have one more palette in the warehouse. About 50+ 7 foot boards in a palette.


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## NBeener (Sep 16, 2009)

It didn't happen, if you don't post pictures ;-)

Me like mahogany. Me must REALLY like OLD mahogany !


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## wwbob (Jul 12, 2010)

The board on the left is 1 inch thick, 8.25 wide and 84 inches long.



About 50 board feet shown here.










You can see the two holes in each board where it was attached to the bleacher structure.

Sorry it took so long, had to find camera then figure out how to post pictures.


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## Chip (Mar 13, 2007)

No doubt you'll work around those holes just fine. The rest of the wood looks perfect. What a great find. I look forward to seeing what comes of it…


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## NBeener (Sep 16, 2009)

Sadly, and oddly, I DO dream like that


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## Madwood (Jan 17, 2010)

Back in the late 70's, I worked for a casket company here in Syracuse, NY. Every once in awhile, they would allow employees to purchase some of the stock they couldn't use, on the cheap. I wasn't much into wwking back then, but my dad bought up about 1500bf of mahogany, oak, cherry and walnut. It sat upstairs in the barn at his house for years. After I got married, moved off and got into wwking more, he had me come over and load the truck up and haul it off to my shop. I was definately in wood heaven! I made all kinds of furniture and stuff over the yrs and finally used up the last of it a couple yrs ago.Thanks Dad! I do still have a couple dozen 1 1/2" mahogany dowels used for casket handles. Sadly, the old Marsellus Casket plant succombed to fire just this week. It had closed in 2003 and they believe it may have been a victim of arson. 

John

Oh yeah, the mahogany was dark rich red and had quite a nice mottled figue to it…I think he gave less than a buck/bf for it. It was like $1000 for all of it.


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## TheWoodsman (Jun 21, 2010)

Great story John. I live in Batesville (home of Batesville Casket that bought the intellectual property of Marsellus) and there used to be two large furniture manufacturers in town, Union Furniture C. and Romweber Furniture Co. I got lots of great turning/carving blanks from Romwebers over the years and got a bunch of great workbench bases at the Union auction years ago. Our furniture heritage is now almost dead.

To the OP, you have a great find there. I still kick myself that I did not make myself and my desires known back when the local schools dumped their wood bleachers for plastic. Lots of great 100% clear douglas fir went who knows where.


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## azart (Nov 2, 2011)

Hello there, I came across this post on the reclaimed Mahogany bleacher material and wanted to share some art panels made with the same stuff from Mesa,Az. Two of the panels use it in the frame and the tree panel has reclaimed chestnut inside the frame from the same store. I wish I would have purchased more the Mahogany…


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## Beginningwoodworker (May 5, 2008)

Nice looking boards!


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## CodyJames (Oct 24, 2011)

I'd been buying crap loads of mahogany for like 1.80 - 2.13 a foot, sure its flooring, but I cut the tongue and groove off and wallah, nice project boards.

Then the flood struck and I lost my entire stockpile along with all my curly maple.. *cries in his bowl of cereal and milk*
The store I bought it from got flooded out of business. *cries some more* CHERISH YOUR SUPPLIES!


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## planeBill (Oct 21, 2011)

azart, those are beautiful works of art. You have put that wood to most excellent use. Great work. Thabks for letting us all see them.


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## fge (Sep 8, 2008)

Wow! Congrats. I was close to selling a kitchen using African Mahogany and the lumber was quoted at 3.91 BF.


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