Thread: Re Indonesion mahogany

Originally Posted by WOODY41

Hi everyone,
I have some new infomation regarding the indo mahogany, i have found another stamp on it with FRAGILE GLASS and it apparently was used 20-40 years ago can anyone shed some more light on this. Is it really indo mahogany? if not what could it be ?

thanks Dan

The best way to tell if it is timber or glass is to hit it with a hammer and listen to the sound it makes.
If its timber it makes a "thunk" kind of sound. If its glass it makes a "tinkle" type of sound.

Hi Woody,
I've had a look at Indoesian Mahogany on some web pages. It appears that plantations of Mahogany (Honduras) have been established for about 80 years ( their claim not mine.), so its highly likely that what you have is Mahogany. I've attached a pic from the web to show that these people, who are Owners and furniture makers say it looks like. It seems incredibly rich and the samples of furniture were heavily transformed, with gol leaf silver filigree and some staining. I don't have a picture of the Fijian stuff I've worked with, but there is a lot more variation in colour within a single board. In discussions with people in timber yards whose opinion I value, I believe it has only been available for about 10 years, so they are only now harvesting good size trees. Thus its tendency to move. I don't understand, however, why we don't see more of the older Indonesian trees in Oz.

Regards

Rob

Meliacea is the Mahogany family, and this family has about 50 genera within that.

Within Meliacea - Swientia is the genus (genera) that is known as the trade group "Mahogany" and includes 3 species known as Pacific, Honduras and West Indian Mahoganies.

Swientia, both the macrophylla (Honduras) and mahagoni (West Indian)forms is grown across the Phillipines, Malaysia and Indonesia (and other tropical countries).

It was planted to a commercial scale from about 80 years ago (one of the last acts of the Dutch agroforestry in Indonesia, and continues to the present). Rotations are on a 40 - 60 year time scale, and usually export of sawn timber is limited/banned in SEAsian countries.
The preference is to value adding and turning it into high end furniture, and taxing the hell out of the furniture on export.

Main 'sawn board' exporters are Bolivia, Brazil and Peru.

The name Mahogany is also appiled to Khaya (African Mahogany -another commercially important member of the Mahogany species), Meranti's, Shoreas and Parashorea's as a marketing tool... like our "Tasmanian Oak".

In Indonesia, Swientia is usually planted within a farming system called "taungya" or "Tumpangsari", where trees are planted along with food crops, and the food crops are grown until the canopy closes.... although continuing to grow food crops under the canopy (with a little judicious tree pruning) is almost standard due to population/poverty pressure.

In Indonesia, the population/poverty issue means that:
On plantations, quicker growing species (such as Teak) are planted to maximise returns, and to get the plantation to a 'no canopy' situation more regularly so food crops can be intercropped more regularly.


So, unless you get it looked at by someone who knows.... I'd guess you either got some that failed a quality test and got put into a pallet, or is one of the other species that was marketed as Mahogany.

Apologies for the long winded post.... thought I'd put down a lot of info to see if it helps you or others.

Hi Clinton, :eek: :confused: :eek: er.. and thanks for that .

As I said it seems strange that we don't see much of this timber here. My suspicion is as you have said. Either its not up to snuff or its something else. Without seeing a pic or two, its very hard to even get in the ball park. My understanding is that the Mahogany takes too long to grow for the farmers to be able to wait for a return, thus as you also said, they concentrate more on Teak.

Regards,

Rob

yes, they concentrate on teak, although there is enough mahogany to support a large, high end, cabinetry industry.

Usual trouble of poor drying and exporting from a tropical (humid) country means the "high end" furniture usually moves and cracks when exported to drier climates - makes it unattractive, IMO.

The 'taungya' system see's all kinds of interesting timbers grown, but also means that you are getting the odd log of this and that being harvested all the time. Makes large scale buying difficult and expensive because of an inability to get large quantities harvested/transported/dried at the same time.

I have family over in Indonesia that deal in Mahogany and Teak on a fairly large scale, from farm grown and recycled sources .... they face all kinds of difficulties selling it due to the reputation for the variable quality of timber coming out of Indonesia.
While they try improve the system, at the same time they lose land to food farming and urban growth, which makes the industry less viable..... a catch 22 situation.
It also means that its cheap for the family to put massive teak and mahogany beams in their houses, rather than other materials!

Thanks for the info guys i will try to get some pics. It is really strange stuff when it comes to different colors in the same piece it like it is a dark red on one side and then to a meranti pale on the other almost like it has been stained. But any way there are more stamps in indonesion i will post them tommorow you guys might know more.

Thanks Dan

Thanks Clinton,

Fascinating and interesting stuff.

Woody, some photos would be great. Look forward to them.

Regards,

Rob

Sorry cant shrink photos but if you want to leave email addresses will be happy to send them. When it comes to pc's i am not a smart man but i know what love is (forest gump) .........

Thanks Dan