Thread: You know that 1940s brown furniture?

Looks like plantation Mahogany . And its not a 1940s table from what I can see Scott. Lovely timber .
A lot of average junk was made from it around the mid to late 1980s roughly .
Made quick. Finished surfaces could be terrible . Stained and Polished horribly. Again though, a beautiful timber .
I used to go to Mathews timber and pick boards of it for restoration work and built some things from it. There was a big variation in a pack. From light plain grain to heavy figured stuff. Both had its uses and it was some of the best matching mahogany colour and grain wise to 1850s / 1880s original furniture I could get. Better than Honduras or Brazilian which we used to use a lot of for some things, which was being starting to be phased out around the 1990s I think
. It was closer to Cuban. A dead ringer in a lot of boards . The main difference to the old Cuban was its much lighter weight and its hardness.

Look at this.
Mahogany Wood Fiji

And this.
Fiji Mahogany - Google Search





Rob

I would have guessed meranti out of Indonesia. Those legs look more Dutch and English.

It does look like the Fiji mahogany I have seen at Mathews. I remember thinking it was pale for mahogany. Still a good score whatever it is. Free wood is the best wood as the saying goes. Even more so at today's prices.
Regards
John

Thanks all.
I think you nailed it, Rob.
the legs did seems to have been attached poorly, which fits with what you wrote about things being made quickly and cheaply.
Terrible stain job. There must have been a hankering for very dark timber back in the 80s.
I’ll dress it all in a couple of weeks and ponder a project. I’m curious to see what variation in colour and grain there will be.
It really is a very nice timber to work with.
Scott.

The top looks thick which is good Scott. How thick is it? 30mm ?
Strange construction as well the legs are mortised into the top and there is no side or end rails that I can see. Looks Indonesian made.
You probably will not get the amount of variation in one table I used to see in packs at Mathews. I remember when we first started seeing this wood for sale at Australian furniture timbers in Port Melbourne . It was all a light looking colour like you have . It was 20 years later at Mathews when I was seeing much better quality with some boards in a pack darker and heavy 50 / 50 with the lighter stuff.

I posted this thread ages ago which is the restoration of a high quality Victorian extension table .
It needed three new leaves matched to the solid Cuban Mahogany top its pretty rare to see a Victorian extension table with sold Cuban for a top . Late Georgian or early Victorian quality ones maybe. We restored a lot of them Later Victorian 1850s to 1880s in the 1970s and on from then and I just watched the older guys do the work on them from 1979 . All of those later ones were Honduras Mahogany not Cuban. Anyway this table was Cuban and the plantation Mahogany timber for the missing three leaves were picked from a pack at Mathews timber. With a guess it was around 2012 .

Mahogany Extension Table Restoration

In post 6 of the thread you can see four leaves . Three have just been stained with Potassium Di Chromate. There is one original third in from the left and one left to stain. And after that the finished table .

Looks very like an Indonesiam piece,probably not even very old and likely made from rubberwood.
I am working on a piece at the moment, they are usually not very well made and fixed together with pegs and nails.

Originally Posted by mark david

Looks very like an Indonesiam piece,probably not even very old and likely made from rubberwood.
I am working on a piece at the moment, they are usually not very well made and fixed together with pegs and nails.

Yes, this table had some nails in it holding on those curved bits where the legs join the table. I recall that period where people where bringing stuff in from Indonesia.
So rubberwood or plantation mahogany. Looks similar from photos.
Regardless, IÂ’m glad I made the effort to collect it. Most stuff these days on the side of the road is not solid.
The top is 50mm thick auscab, so there is a fair amount of nice (and free) timber there once I have dressed it all.