# Mahogany Glue Help Needed



## JerryLH (Oct 23, 2014)

A few years back I got a small amount of old growth mahogany. I'm going to make a dining table and my question has to do with grain direction and glue up. Conditions = There was some cupping - I ripped four pieces of 10" wide (appx) into eight pieces - I flattened and squared all eight pieces - I glued the eight pieces back into four pieces (as original) - 'now' I'm laying out the four pieces for aesthetics. My question is - should the grain direction be a consideration at this time (from an aesthetics point of view)? The best view, IMO, does not consider grain direction. I'm concerned if I don't take grain direction into consideration - that later, after finish has been applied - light refraction will not be consistent across the table width. What are your thoughts?

Thank You 'Muchly'


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## bondogaposis (Dec 18, 2011)

A lot of mahogany has ribbon figure that is caused by reversing grain direction within the same board. If that is the case with your wood, then you will be hard pressed to match the grain direction no matter how you do it. I would go with what looks best then wipe it down with mineral spirits, that will give a pretty good guess how it will look finished.


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## wormil (Nov 19, 2011)

If you will need to hand plane it after glue up then consider grain direction. If you can get it flat and smooth and keep it that way through glue up, then I wouldn't worry as much about grain direction. Mahogany is among the most stable of woods.

One more tip, mahogany is soft and I recommend a hard finish like varnish or polyurethane. I used an oil/varnish mix on my mahogany table and it was too soft.


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## JerryLH (Oct 23, 2014)

Thank You both for the very helpful feedback. I greatly appreciate folks willing to share their knowledge.

Regards, Jerry


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## Andybb (Sep 30, 2016)

> One more tip, mahogany is soft and I recommend a hard finish like varnish or polyurethane. I used an oil/varnish mix on my mahogany table and it was too soft.
> 
> - Rick_M


I know you didn't specifically ask about finishes but these two are my 2 hard water & oil based favorites for ease of application.


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