Using mahogany

[Cheshirechappie]

I was under the impression that whilst Brazilian mahogany should be avoided as probably being logged illigally, Honduras mahogany is plantation grown and thus sustainable. However - that's just an impression formed over years of reading a couple of woodworking magazines, and browsing timber dealers' websites. So the impression may not be right. Where does one find reliable information?

I doubt you can buy Honduran mahogany, but I may be wrong. The information should be provided by people like me. That is what we are paid to do, and having raised the issue I will do my best to fulfil that promise. I will start with mahogany and go from there. There are so many species to cover, but perhaps focusing on one will help clarify the situation. As others have mentioned, 'mahogany' is used to describe many species. I will try to clarify that too.

Thanks, Nick. Given the scale and complexity of the international timber trade, that's quite an undertaking, and finding definitive answers may not be easy. However, any efforts in the direction of informing the woodworking community would be much appreciated.

 

[AndyT]

Another aspect of this many headed question is about what prompts an ordinary consumer to choose one species rather than another. I think a lot of the time people don't go seeking a particular type of wood but will make a choice from the options offered to them.

So, in the 1970s and 80s a lot of people who had tatty windows were offered, and bought, mahogany replacements. (A few years later they might have chosen aluminium; now it would be PVCu. )

They didn't start out with a longing for mahogany. That choice would have been made how? By the importers and the joinery trade?

So how do you influence them?

There are similar forced choices in the furniture trade. I don't think consumers lobbied Argos to start stocking black ash veneered wardrobes, but when they were in the catalogues, people bought them. I'm not sure what the equivalent species is now, but someone somewhere will have decided what the fashionable and available wood is going to be.

 

[Benchwayze]

Brazilian mahogany is available from at least one sawmill I know of, and which I patronise for most timber I use. The 'price range' is naturally high. And the last time I checked, it was said to be obtained from renewable sources.

The problem is how long does it take to renew one mature, useable tree? For a slow growing species, I don't see how anyone can claim 'renewability'. In theory yes, but it's going to be a couple of hundred years before any planted timber is marketable. Maybe 500 years down the line there might be swathes of renewable sources, even of teak, but I doubt it. I also believe mahogany is one of the species that grows plentifully, (given the areas of rain forest) but specimens are mostly lone trees, spread a long way apart. That, and the difficulty of accessing these trees was once given as the reason for a scarcity of Swietenia Macrophylla. I will gladly be re-educated if I am off the beam.

I appreciate of course, that today the timber has been over-felled. but it's still my favourite 'foreign' timber to work with.

John