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Interesting story about old Mahogany logs being found in Belieze rivers.
I hope that Hibdon will be getting some of this stuff.

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Oooh, Now we have "sinker mahogany" to go with the sinker redwood tops!

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jw ( o)===:::

LOL

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"After forty-nine years of violin building, I have decided that the search for a varnish is similar to the fox hunt. The fun is in the hunt."
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The writer must not know mahogany if he thinks Honduran mahogany is best. The close up photo looks more like Cuban mahogany,though,which really is the best. It is very dense. Nearly like ebony. The Cuban mahogany,of course,comes from Cuba. If this is the same as Cuban,it would be called Spanish mahogany.

For the sake of accuracy Cuban can range from 0.45 to 0.65 s.g. Ebony is nearly twice that at 1.03 to 1.12 s.g.
So while Cuban is usually denser than Honduran it is no where close to Ebony.
Link

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It sank for a reason. It's to heavy for fine musical instruments. Save it for a ardmoire or a table.

[quote="george wilson"] The close up photo looks more like Cuban mahogany,though,which really is the best. quote]

Why is Cuban mahogany "the best"? What evidence do you use to conclude that?

Thanks.

Glen

I would not be afraid to use that at all. I bet it would be a great tone wood once you could dry it properly.

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John Hall
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Glen,

Cuban mahogany is useless for guitar making and I would urge anyone that has any to send it to me straight away to avoid any temptation of making instruments from it Don't send it to those furniture restorers either that hunt this stuff out with fanatical zeal - they are probably using it to make fakes

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". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Glen, from what I've read, Cuban is the genuine original unquestionable mahogany of the past. It is denser, with a finer texture, works better etc etc than Honduras, which is a different species and (used to be) a cheap replacement. Since Honduras is nearly depleted too, we now have yet other replacements coming from Africa but these species are even coarser, in general. You can relate this trio to the one formed by Brazilian, Indian, and plantation Indian rosewoods, if you want.

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Build log

Hello all,

For the record -

The trouble with common/venacular names is that they are not necessarily accurate as to origins and it's easy to confuse one species with another. It's always more accurate to use the formal binary nomenclature left to us by Linnaeus, especially when comparing one botanical species with another.

Swietenia mahogoni (L.) Lam. is known commonly as Cuban Mahogany but also as West Indian Mahogany, Hispañolian Mahogany and even American Mahogany (It's native to the southern regions of Florida everglades and
I believe there are or at least were a few trees left standing there). In Cuba, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico is goes by it's original Taino name - Caoba. In Haiti it's know by the name Acajou. Incidentally, It's the national tree and it's blossom, the national flower, of the Dominican Republic, where it began to be exploited in the early 1500's as the preferred mast wood for the galleons of the Spanish Main.

But even once you think you have the name straight, however you choose to call the tree or it's wood, that's not always a guarantee that it's the whole truth - as Swietenia mahogoni hybridizes readily and freely in the wild with other two species of the genus - namely S. macrophylla and S. humilis.

Here's a good description and some other information (gleaned from the Danida Forest Seed Center in Denmark):

"S. mahagoni is a humid zone species, with natural distribution in the Caribbean region (S.Florida, Bahamas,
Antilles, Haiti and Jamaica). The species is overexploited in much of its natural area of distribution and has been registered on CITES Appendix II (1992) as an endangered species. It has been extensively planted mainly in southern Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh) and in the Pacific (Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia and Fiji), and has been introduced into cultivation in West Africa.The most important ecological characteristic that distinguishes S. mahogany from S.macrophylla is the ability to grow under dry conditions. It occurs naturally in climates with
annual rainfall of only 580-800 mm. The yields from plantations is generally lower than for S. macrophylla but
on dry sites it is superior and the wood quality is better."

The wood density is 560-850 kg/m3 at 15% moisture content (+/-).

I first became acquainted with the tree while working in a reforestation program way back in the 70's in the Atribonito watershed in the Dominican Republic and have been loosely in contact with a few groups in the DR
over the years that are working in reforestation efforts that include the planting of this beautiful tree.

my 2¢,

john

John...excellent info!

I agree that it is a pain to keep species straight using just regular names.

A fine example: I was looking up info on an arborvitae (how bad did I mangle that spelling?) we are having removed...to see if the wood was any good for lutherie or general woodworking. Anyway, I was immediately confused by the different types of this there are, and the various 'common' names they go by. White Cedar? Related to Red Cedar? Not related to anything at all? All in all, as it is a pretty big tree I am going to keep it and experiment with it once enough dry time has happened.

The point is, common names can be a major pain. Of course, I seldom have the attention span to learn to proper ones.

-Matthew

Glen,I have a stock of 100 year old genuine Cuban mahogany,and have other builders who would love to have it. It was the treasured mahogany in the 18th.C. for making the finest furniture,and was harvested at great loss of the lives of both men and oxen due to disease. They only took the figured stumps at first.then,I think 50 years later,when the wood began to get scarce,loggers came back and took the trunks that had lain on the ground all that time.

In the very beginning,logs were loaded in ships returning to Europe for ballast once cargo had been unloaded. Either that,or rocks were used. The logs were thrown up on docks where they were discovered by cabinet makers. The bright colors were highly prized,and wood from the New World quickly became a cash cargo to bring back.

As for the wood sinking,I believe Brazilian rosewood would also sink. In fact,regular American woods like maples and spruces sometimes sank in the Great Lakes. Now,after many years,they are dredging it up and getting very high prices for it,guitar makers included.

I don't see what sinking has to do with good tone wood.

Cuban mahogany, my favorite subject.
Besides the increased density, the fact that cuban has roughly equivalent rates of radial and tangential shrinkage, both in the 4 percent range, make this the ideal lumber. The genuine, or big leaf, or honduran, or south american has about the same rate of radial shrinkage, but the itrs increased tangential shrinkage rate will cause some flat or rift sawn board to be less than straight, or move over time, even when not loaded. This makes for a more stable lumber for resawing as well.
The other easy characteristic to see is that the pore size in minute compared to most honduran, or genuine, or big leaf, or whatever it may be called. I will attach a photo with a tape measure to try and illustrate the small size pore, but I don't think it is possible to capture this difference-wetted with mineral spirits like this the pore shows up pretty distinctly, but there really is very little grain to fill here. I am fairly certain this the root of name for the genuine, honduran, bigleaf, south american mahogany, sweitenia macrophylla, with the macro here referring to its grain size as compared to the cuban sweitenia mahogani. This tiny grain/pore size makes the wood like a super "sweet" genuine mahogany to work-hand planes sing like on the finest "genuine" mahogany. There is also most often more of the white lime present in and along the grain structure, easiest usually to see on the flat sawn.
I just hit this piece with a handplane for the picture, doesn't do it justice.

I've built furniture for a living for almost 30 years. In the past, I've occasionally built pieces from Cuban and have restored many, many pieces from the 18th century built from Cuban. As with all wood, its density and color varies.

I've had plenty of Mahogany from Central and South America (especially Peru) that was darker and denser than Cuban.
So like with most subjects - generalities are not accurate.

Because it's no longer commercially available, Cuban has this mystique that is sometimes warranted and many times not.

Darker and denser, I have seen in Big leaf. Exceedingly tiny pores, I have never seen. I do not wish to imply cuban as better necesarily. The cuban I have has an almost pinkish flesh color when freshly cut, that quickly bronzes. I also think the lower density gives big leaf(south american) a better resonance. Lots of pieces of south american have a better tap, or ring, or whatever you call it-they just feel musical. The bigger pore just makes them perhaps not polish up as nice. If you did not happen to see the small leaf and know where the tree came from, perhaps all that is sold as cuban is not really. The Florida keys, some in the bahamas, cuba, jamaica/dominican rep. I have never actually held that from palau(?) that the blue moon people sell, I would have to touch and use to judge. I do think cuban is really a different animal.