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Mahogany is one of the more stable woods which is why it was the perferred wood for pattern makers, not to mention guitar necks. Still is I suppose for the few pattern makers that are out there who use wood.
You should try to get your hands on Bruce Hoadley's(sp?) book "Understanding Wood". What you actually want is a wood that has it's tangential shrinkage and radial shrinkage as close together as possible. He has a list of a veriety of woods showing the shrinkage and shrikage ratios in his book. Perhaps your library has it.
A lot of very good information in his book on humidity and wood movement by the way.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Thanks, Jim. Sounds like a book that's well worth having. Will do.

No, it's quite the opposite; as a general rule wood moves about half as much radially (quartersawn or vertical grained) vs tangentially (flatsawn).

Indeed, a big part of why mahogany has been so popular throughout the ages is 1) it is quite stable, and 2) it is one of very few woods which moves almost the same amount in the radial and tangential directions, so it really doesn't matter whether it's quartersawn or flatsawn or anywhere in between.

If you must use a domestic wood, southern magnolia would probably do well for your project (3D puzzle?).

The T/R ratio of southern magnolia is probably the best of our domestic woods, but exercise caution when doing the "ultimate T/R search". A wood can appear suitable from the standpoint of T/R, yet be substandard in regards to volumetric shrinkage. A case in point is yellowheart.

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