Thread: Fijian Mahogany for tote and knob

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

... This is mine:Attachment 515507

Cherry. (98% certain).

LN do use Hornbeam (Carpinus sp.) for their chisel handles and figured maple (Acer sp.) for their saw handles. I have only ever seen cherry on their planes, but they may use other woods for special orders or special lines....
Cheers,

I've never seen an LN plane other than cocobolo and perhaps some limited collectable versions that use anything other than cherry.

As far as mahogany in fiji, it's most likely honduran mahogany (swietenia macrophylla). Some old items could also be cuban mahogany (swietenia mahoganii).

The variation in color and density for mahogany is so large that it's difficult to say much. It will darken with surface oxidation.

i've had a bunch of guitar blanks in the various offerings, but mostly limba (doesn't look like it at all), khaya ("african" mahogany) and honduran maghogany. The honduran blanks vary greatly both in color and in ring pattern - at least some are probably from fiji. If they are really heavy, they're undesirable for guitars, but were desired by furniture makers and carvers. The older larger trees were probably a lot more dense in the heart and a little bit darker, but there is some wide ringed stuff coming out of fiji that's "honduran mahogany" that is also dense and dark.

I've seen a few older infills with mahogany, but many stanley plane patterns with it. It would work fine, but they were either using easy-to-source rosewood early on or stained beech later.

I've seen (literally measured) mahogany samples that were dry anywhere from 0.45 SG to 0.70 for honduran, and have a billet of cuban mahogany that's 0.84 and very old and completely dry. what I can't do because the boat anchor weight blanks seem to show up (for guitars) even from new second/recent growth wood, is make any generalized comments about how dense old vs. new stuff is because there may be some things that are likely but you'd have to see hundreds of samples to be able to make any claims, and plenty of the older guitars that were made of old growth honduran were selected from lighter wood even though it was old growth.

Claims about which types of woods are what in the guitar community are rampant, and they usually come from non-builders. "honduran is always darker and african never has that nice deep color". I've responded to those posts with pictures of all of my blanks and nobody ever guesses them all right, and they're just a random sample. The only one somewhat easy to spot is sapele because of the red hue. I can't tell visually if a blank is honduran or african looking at the face, either - one has to see the rings on the end grain to see how well defined the growth rings are.

I'm fairly sure that honduran mahogany is also grown in india and indonesia. But Toona mahogany is also common in indonesia, probably not a real mahogany, but also used in guitars.

The sellers of wood or furniture aren't really helpful because they will refer to "indonesian" mahogany rather than saying if it's "toon" or "honduran".

Anything sold on planes or guitars has probably always been stained, too, on top of the oxidizing (darkening) of the top layer.

Thanks David. My plank of FM is lighter than I expected (in terms of weight). The chair I have fixed up (the reason for having the timber) is a darker browner but the grain structure of my FM looks like a reasonable match (I was told that the chair was Mahogany). The plane tote has a nice feel in the hand, almost having a bit of compressive give

the hardness average given on wood database would suggest it'll be just fine. Even if it's on the light side, it's in the ballpark of cherry and lie-nielsen would be burned at the stake if they made a handle and knob that broke on a $400 plane.

This subject caught my attention only because there's lots out there re:mahogany that's based on assumptions. It's nice wood even when it's light (either in weight or in color).

if it can be had in straight stable wide boards where the density is around 0.5 specific gravity, then the guitar people will come running and begging for it.

What you have looks like mahogany to me, hopefully it didn't seem that I thought it was anything else. I'm guessing around WWII, the English loaded fiji with mahogany because they were there and they recognized that the climate was similar to central america where it grows well.

The other thing that sticks in my mind is how it works - it works with planing, sanding and sawing and such as if it was divinely designed to be worked with hand tools....aside from the now and again wood that's got silica in it. that still works nicely.

I also perked up because of the fact that the English did plant honduran mahogany all over fiji and now it's a region with contracts to guitar companies an suppliers - not just because it's any kind of mahogany, but because it's honduran mahogany.

Gibson deals with the giant variation in weight (even though all of the wood is generally young) by coming up with novel drilling patterns to remove wood on the insides of guitars before the bottom and top are put together.

And they pull the lighter large boards/blanks to be used in their custom operation.

Knob and handle came out great, by the way. Looks like honduran to me, too, and more can only be told about confirming that based on what you observe working it. Khaya is generally more splintery, limba doesn't look or feel the same, and a lot of the others like toona are also not nearly as forgiving as "the real thing".

its workability and sometimes-higher-density combined with very good shrinkage figures is probably why it was seen with some regularity in older infills - especially some that were user made from ironmonger parts. My least dense stuff can be dented with a fingernail. The most dense honduran that I have is easily as dense as hard maple, and the high density cuban billet that I have is about the same density as plantation indian rosewood.

the online summaries of various woods sometimes don't do a good job of telling how much variation there is between samples in color, grain look and density. Indian rosewood is all over the place, too, with young plantation trees going all the way from very dark almost black browns and purples to kind of light boring colors. Density and hardness varies a good bit, too.

no obligation by any means, but if you can remember, please let us have a look at the plane handles again in a year. They'll either be filthy or they'll get a sun tan otherwise.

re: your question about an LN plane - they are wonderfully made and solid. For a beginner, they're probably easier to master and if you're in a thin shaving contest on the internet, the adjuster is better suited to operating in a whole range of fine shavings because of the finer thread.

But when it comes down to practical work with the cap iron set, the stanley plane will be a little less tiring to use (not a big deal if you're not doing tons of work at a time), and the quality of the surface left behind won't be any different from one to the other.

But they are honest in terms of what they do (LN) and their product is a fine product.

Originally Posted by D.W.

.......I'm fairly sure that honduran mahogany is also grown in india and indonesia. But Toona mahogany is also common in indonesia, probably not a real mahogany, but also used in guitars.....

Toona is in the meliaceae family, along with mahogany & Khaya & Cedrela (& some other species that grow here such as Dysoxylon), so they are all cousins. The trees can even look superficially similar, especially when you are looking up at a canopy 100 feet above your head. Toona ciliata has a very wide distribution from India across S.E Asia and into tropical & sub-tropical Australia, where it gets the confusing name of "red cedar". Early colonists called it "bastard mahogany" because of its resemblance to the 'real thing' which was at the peak of its popularity at the time Australia was first colonised. Indeed the two woods cane be extremely hard to pick on visual grounds alone. This bed head is a n mixture of Fijian mahogany & "old growth" Australian red cedar (Toona) - they've blended very nicely since the photo was taken on the day I finished polishing it & you would struggle to see much difference now:

Bed1.jpg

There is some variation in the wood, not only due to age of tree, growing conditions but also clonal differences that would be expected over its wide range. I once built a small bookcase from imported "Malaysian red -cedar" It was meant to be a reproduction of a fairly typical bit of 'cedar' furniture in Australian homes in the late 19th C.

Cedar bookcase b.jpg

The wood looked the part & had identical working properties, but I noticed it had a slightly different smell from the local "red cedar" I was used to. It was definitely different from 'Aus red cedar in one respect, there was something in the wood that reacted with the shellac finish & caused it to peel - I re-finished the darned thing twice before it settled down! Local "red cedar" is normally very compatible with shellac finishes.

The moral of the story is that wood is a biological product & can be very variable - even two trees of similar age growing side by side can produce vastly different woods, let alone growing thousands of kilometers apart....

Cheers,

Thanks again David and Ian. It will probably come as no suprise to at least one of you that when I bought the plank the wholesaler asked me if I was going to build a guitar! My example is lovely to work, it spokeshaved nicely and planes beautifully. Very interesting about the connection between Mahogany's. I thought it also reminded me of Meranti, a previously very common choice for architraves and skirting boards. But it smells nothing like Meranti when cut.

Originally Posted by IanW

Toona is in the meliaceae family, along with mahogany & Khaya & Cedrela (& some other species that grow here such as Dysoxylon), so they are all cousins. The trees can even look superficially similar, especially when you are looking up at a canopy 100 feet above your head. Toona ciliata has a very wide distribution from India across S.E Asia and into tropical & sub-tropical Australia, where it gets the confusing name of "red cedar". Early colonists called it "bastard mahogany" because of its resemblance to the 'real thing' which was at the peak of its popularity at the time Australia was first colonised. Indeed the two woods cane be extremely hard to pick on visual grounds alone. This bed head is a n mixture of Fijian mahogany & "old growth" Australian red cedar (Toona) - they've blended very nicely since the photo was taken on the day I finished polishing it & you would struggle to see much difference now:

Bed1.jpg

There is some variation in the wood, not only due to age of tree, growing conditions but also clonal differences that would be expected over its wide range. I once built a small bookcase from imported "Malaysian red -cedar" It was meant to be a reproduction of a fairly typical bit of 'cedar' furniture in Australian homes in the late 19th C.

Cedar bookcase b.jpg

The wood looked the part & had identical working properties, but I noticed it had a slightly different smell from the local "red cedar" I was used to. It was definitely different from 'Aus red cedar in one respect, there was something in the wood that reacted with the shellac finish & caused it to peel - I re-finished the darned thing twice before it settled down! Local "red cedar" is normally very compatible with shellac finishes.

The moral of the story is that wood is a biological product & can be very variable - even two trees of similar age growing side by side can produce vastly different woods, let alone growing thousands of kilometers apart....

Cheers,

it's not long before I can't keep the cedars and mahoganies straight outside of a few. Many will make a nice guitar, and I'm sure nice furniture. Toon is used in some guitars made in korea, not low quality guitars, and I mentioned something about one made to another guy a few years ago. A Dangelico guitar probably 12 years old, and remarked that it's a better guitar than a gibson les paul. The guy was kind of an "it brand" buyer. I couldn't notice any difference in sound/timbre and the guitars were straight. He couldn't stop going on about "they don't even use real mahogany".

Well, so be it. the guitar is a more expensive design and having seen four of them over time, they stay straighter.

Not sure I have a real point here other than the "real thing" (macrophylla) is just supple to work, has great sound, but so do other woods that might be a little less nice to work. A lot of the choice of mahogany for Gibson probably came down to how tolerant it is of being smashed through pin routers, even when the bits get dull. It doesn't, unfortunately, have a great record for neck stability once a guitar starts to reach vintage level, and most of the wonked necks that I've seen are one-piece mahogany, where over time, the neck takes an uneven (unlevel) set, and when adjusted, the neck doesn't move properly - some parts are not even stiffness long the length resulting in very small peaks and valleys. Which equate to dead notes.

gibson attempted to start laminating mahogany necks for stability in 1969 and people had a fit about it. For some reason, laminated necks are seen as the real deal on their higher end guitars, though, like the super 400.

I like the simplicity of dead straight mahogany better, for looks, but if a guitar doesn't stay straight, it becomes really aggravating....

I forgot my point again mentioning these other woods (avodire, toon, etc). they're not really sourced and offered in guitar sized wood here, and when they are, they're just as expensive as anything else. It seems like an opportunity lost.

Recently I found out that Sargent used "Indian Mahogany" for their handles. After doing a online search, it turns out the name was used to refer to up to four different species, one of them being Toona. I looked up Fiji mahogany too, it's Macrophylla.

The English either provided seeds or planted the mahogany in fiji. I'm sure there are other trees in fiji, but the younger trees there being plantationed as macrophylla was an intentional thing.

Subjectively, the wood I've bought for guitars has wider rings than you'd see in older lumber, but it's hard to make any specific statements about it as it can still be heavier than expected, and sometimes be really light and soft. when it's exposed to light for a while, even the lighter stuff will get a fair bit darker.

Not sure if it's by coincidence, but in the mid 2000s, gibson started a sourcing agreement with fiji - maybe it was a matter of trees being mature enough. Gibson doesn't generally use anything other than honduran mahogany and hasn't other than the odd guitar here and there, or a few out of korina (limba).

Point with the fiji thing being deliberate is mahogany varies - supposedly - a lot based on the climate and also some due to elevation with some of the really high end makers liking wood that grows at higher elevation. the one maker I can think of who had an elevation preference was Collings - not sure if they still do the same thing, but I doubt that wood was from fiji (all of it is honduran). They quickly ran out of one-piece bodies made of quartered mahogany and now most are flatsawn or something a little more forgiving of tree width.

I've also noticed with the fjiian blanks, and any other second growth mahogany, the stability that the old growth wood was known for isn't there for a couple of years, even though the wood is dried. Over a period of a year or two kept dry and inside, the flatsawn blanks cup, and then after that, they seem to have stopped.

The workability and resonance is still there, though.

I don't know the history of mahogany in general, but would guess a whole lot of the reason that we saw so much honduran mahogany from the 1800s to 1960 is because it was being sold for almost nothing off of the stump. It definitely reduces time for a furniture maker to be able to use something that planes and carves so well, but I'll bet that the territories of origin never really got what we would think they should for the material.

Khaya about 10 years ago was easy to find in big wide quartered boards, too. I can't find stuff like that as easily now, especially if being picky about density. I don't buy boards, but rather guitar blanks cut from khaya. I'd bet in africa, the same thing is happening now - the old trees are being cut and while the trees will never be eliminated, the large old ones will become scarce.

Originally Posted by D.W.

.....Point with the fiji thing being deliberate is mahogany varies - supposedly - a lot based on the climate and also some due to elevation with some of the really high end makers liking wood that grows at higher elevation.....

This is true of many (most) species that have a wide climatic tolerance. Our Toona ("red cedar") varies quite a bit depending on where it's from. Trees grown in the south of its range, or at high elevations in the more tropical areas tend to be quite noticeably denser than coastal trees. However, there is still much variation even in the same locality.

I doubt even the densest Toona you could find would be suitable for plane totes, but someone will probably prove me wrong...!

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

This is true of many (most) species that have a wide climatic tolerance. Our Toona ("red cedar") varies quite a bit depending on where it's from. Trees grown in the south of its range, or at high elevations in the more tropical areas tend to be quite noticeably denser than coastal trees. However, there is still much variation even in the same locality.

I doubt even the densest Toona you could find would be suitable for plane totes, but someone will probably prove me wrong...!

Cheers,

It seems that Toona has a couple of different woods within its group, and there's probably not much written about them in english that google will find. The australian red cedar version is quoted as being 0.49 SG, which is about where light honduran will end up. People covet honduran in that weight level as it's become super popular to build unchambered light weight guitars. For those not into guitars, chambering and weight relief are all just a matter of some method of taking wood out of the solid part of the body and then generally hiding it by capping the guitar with another wood - no problem if a chambered guitar is a gibson where there's a carved top installed no matter what. I guess it might be done to some extent on slab body guitars that are two piece bodies by just drilling through the thickness of the wood.

so, point I'm getting to here is my dangelico guitars may be the same toona, they may not, they may be a heavy toona or maybe even some of them were honduran or something else. The two i still have were made in korea, some still are (there's a small production builder in korea who makes really high quality production guitars). The two I have are a little older, probably unchambered and one of them is 9 pounds and the other close. which is by current standards a little on the high side.

The versions definitely chambered are lighter. to make a 9 pound guitar does take something more than 0.5SG, at least in the style that I have.

so .....is some a good bit harder than 700? not sure. maybe it's a different wood. The builder specified indo mahogany in some of the press listings, but it's risky to assume any sort of mid to small market builder would use the same wood for a model's life/run of several years because most of the guitar making industry operates on a shoestring.

Whatever the toon is in dangelico's korean imports, I wish it was sold here as the academic references that lead back to a chinese source say "uses - guitars....substitute for honduran mahogany at a greatly reduced price".

Such stuff only gets into the market here if being sold by a one off seller and then a one piece body of it would cost the same as anything else

One way to know when something has been dumped on the market of small specialty lumber sellers is when it's suddenly less expensive and everywhere on Ebay. so it could still end up here. Limba falls into that - for a while, limba (korina) was being sold in big quartered boards for about 1/2 -1/3rd of the current going rate.

What does this have to do with planes? Cherry varies a lot, too, but good cherry is probably about 700-900 in hardness depending on density (dent test). If sargent used a bunch of toon stuff, they may have just picked out the most dense. Not sure if there is such a thing now, but a smart lumber seller who was selling to guitar buyers would pull the heavy stuff and sell it to carvers (mahogany) and save the lightest stuff for guitar makers. A guitar wood specialist here in the states was selling one piece bodies as "overweight" for $35 for a long time because they didn't think they were desirable. That's about 1/3rd to 1/4th of the price they were selling regular and light bodies - actually well below the going rate for clear mahogany even in narrow boards. I should've been smart enough to ask them for some uncut boards for woodworking outside of guitars, figured they'd always have stuff that people don't want for guitars because it's too heavy. They no longer sell the heavy stuff - I think they may have wised up.

Back to the cherry bit - I would never have thought of cherry as a wood suitable for tools because it shrinks a lot, but if it's cut quartered and then has a post through the back and one in the toe, I'm sure it's more than strong enough. I wouldn't want it on an infill, though, for several reasons- it wouldn't fare as well as rosewood without the post just being one of those.

Separately, if any of the toons or other woods that are common down your way got widely distributed here, they'd no longer be cheap, anyway - we'd just reduce your supply.

one more follow up from raffo's post - I didn' notice this until 15 seconds before typing this:

>>Swietenia mahagoni, became known as West Indian, or Cuban, mahogany. <<

https://www.greenworldlumber.com/blog/mahogany-tree

Cuban is generally close to honduran, but the only sample I have of cuban is a dense one about as dense as rosewood, and it's figured. It could've become from an unusual tree, or it could've come from close to a junction of trunks in the heart of a tree.

i'd never cut it for plane handles, but it would be good for that if it was more common.

cuban mahogany is planted in southern parts of florida apparently as town trees. No clue if there's anything usable in them - it was the mahogany referenced as mahogany before supply ran short, just like ceylon ebony was preferred to gabon until ceylon also ran short. Ceylon looks like gabon ebony but is about as dense as rosewood and easier to work. It has the same kind of non-directional property as gabon, though, and can be turned by scraping and still have a nice untorn appearance. I'm sure that was useful at some point when power wasn't easily gotten in kilowatts.

No clue why cuban mahogany was preferred to honduran when cuban was plentiful - it could be at that link, I didn't read the entire link.

Workability of mahogany is so good, though, that people would literally be better at hand tool work if that's all they had to build with - little errors that cause split out or breaking don't affect it, at least not nearly as much and it just yields nicely to tools (especially hand saws) in a way that a lot of other woods don't.