Used Mahogany timber

[user 19915]

Advice please i have been offered these bit's of timber but how can i tell if it 's what they say Used Mahogany timber
5 feet, 4 feet and 3 feet in length also if it's mahogany what's it worth used ps i have copied the photo that was sent to me
ALAN

 

[sunnybob]

unusual to have that much grain in mahogany.
It looks nice though.
Its obviously a hardwood.
Unless the price is too high I would buy it any way whatever it is.

 

[AndyT]

Timber merchants are not botanists or taxonomists.
Over the centuries, many different species have been sold as mahogany, sometimes distinguished by a country of origin, eg Brazilian, Cuban, African, Chinese. ( The Wikipedia article will give you an idea of the chaos - the experts don't all agree.)
In the private sale of some offcuts I wouldn't expect the term to mean much more than "reddish brown imported hardwood" and suggest you look at the wood before buying it.

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

I'd bet a pound to a pinch it is Sapele.

Mike.

 

[HexusOdy]

Its only worth anything if you can use it. Problem I find with buying odd boards, even at a good price, is that is it doesn't make a project you need its not worth anything sat on a rack.

 

[user 19915]

Thank;s for the reply i can have them for £30 plus fuel £6 so £36
I haven't made a bandaw box for a long time and that's why i have been thinking about it decisions decisions
Alan

 

[custard]

HexusOdy makes an excellent point, don't buy odd, mismatched boards for stock. It's just a waste of money unless you need cheap hardwood for jig making or specific tasks like well dried drawer sides.

 

[Ttrees]

Hello,

I'd bet a pound to a pinch it is Sapele.

Mike.

I think it looks to be sapele also, mainly the 4 and 3 foot planks.

I suspected I had some sapele from a recent haul, although it was not displaying the characteristics I am familiar with.
....examples seen previously came from wee bits years ago, bummed from a joinery shop for making a guitar bridge.
It was blandness of these recent examples that made me second guess what it was, no ribbon stripes atall,
just a light red colour and very tight grain, and fairly hard too.
I distinctly remember the flat smelling of it... to me, it smells like carrots and parsnips.
Straight away when I shot some end grain on the shooting board there was no mistake

Tom

 

[pollys13]

From what little I know, those stripes , perhaps Sapele?

 

[Ttrees]

Bump!
In fear that this potentiality fruitful thread may get stacked, I feel obligated to persist

I have not seen a thread where genuine mahogany can be identified by any means other than the microscope/loupe.
I must admit I may be getting close to this stage though, since shooting that sapele end grain released the smell I was hoping/suspecting to smell, I will be implementing this to my practice in future.

So I've mentioned that the sapele smells to me like carrots or parsnips...
What do you guys think African mahogany smells like?
Any other methods of identification that you use would be nice too.

Custard, your advice is heeded for buying timber in this scenario,
That's one tip I would not have thought of, if I intended to actually buy some timber, as I would never be able to afford a big plank.
It makes a good bargaining chip to add to ones armory.
Thanks
Tom

 

[custard]

In photos Sapele can easily get confused with Mahogany, but when you're looking at the actual boards in the flesh then it's pretty easy to tell them apart.

Sapele is heavier, harder, and darker than Brazilian Mahogany; and much heavier, harder and darker than Honduran Mahogany. Okay, Cuban Mahogany is probably similar to Sapele in weight, but when are you likely to come across Cuban in this day and age? Dig your thumbnail into Sapele and into Mahogany and you could identify which is which with your eyes closed. I bet you could tell them apart by sound as well, a bench plane runs through Mahogany with a buttery smoothness, but there's a harsher, crunchier tone when planing Sapele.

Sapele's ribbon grain can look like Mahogany in photographs, but up close they're pretty different. If you look at Sapele in a timber yard the ribbon grain often shows micro tear out from machining, but any roe or ribbon grain figure with Mahogany is more like chatoyance, and there'll be no roughness to the touch. People are often surprised at how pale freshly cut Mahogany is, it's only when the surface is oxidised that it gets darker like Sapele.

Sapele does have a smell, it's not massively distinctive, but if you sniff some fresh shavings there's a spicier note to it than with Mahogany shavings.

As Andy suggested, the problem isn't as simple as Sapele versus Mahogany, there's also Khaya which is generally called "African Mahogany", in many timber yards it just gets shortened to "Mahogany". Khaya sits somewhere between Mahogany and Sapele, but is probably closer to Sapele in it's more obvious characteristics. Again I haven't used it that much, but when I find a timber that I know isn't Mahogany, and I think isn't Sapele, then I generally call it Khaya, which just shows what a rubbish botanist I'd make!

I once sunk hours into making a pair of winding sticks out of Sapele, with elaborate inlay and marquetry work, only to see them curl up like bananas a week later. I took two lessons from that experience. One, just use MDF strips or Ali extrusions for winding sticks, and two, leave Sapele to the joinery boys.

 

[sploo]

I once sunk hours into making a pair of winding sticks out of Sapele, with elaborate inlay and marquetry work, only to see them curl up like bananas a week later. I took two lessons from that experience. One, just use MDF strips or Ali extrusions for winding sticks, and two, leave Sapele to the joinery boys.

Ah... I have a pair of sticks I made from sapele. Last time I checked they were still straight but I ought to look again!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Years ago we used to get a fair amount of utile - horrible stuff. By the bye.

I bought a load of the stuff I used for my bench, an African "mahogany" of some sort, from a friend who fished it out of the sea. He drowned in 1991, so that dates it. I cut one piece 11" x 3" down the centre to make a door frame and after a week I could have used one side as a straight edge, but the other had bowed an inch and a half. You never know where the stesses are in timbers like it, that's why I used these pieces whole.

 

[CHJ]

In photos Sapele can easily get confused with Mahogany, ......Sapele is heavier, harder, and darker than Brazilian Mahogany; and much heavier, harder and darker than Honduran Mahogany. ......Sapele's ribbon grain can look like Mahogany in photographs, but up close they're pretty different. .......s.

Thanks Custard for the descriptive differences in the earlier post, they have widened my appreciation of how to distinguish some of the look-alikes having just started to use up some Brazilian Mahogany offcuts.

 

[custard]

I added some photos to this thread, they might help someone trying to distinguish between Sapele and Brazilian Mahogany,

post1166539.html#p1166539