What Mahogany Wood are you actually buying?
Do you often hear the term “Mahogany wood” but wonder what it is? Mahogany trees are slow growing and take an average of 60 years to be of viable size for economic use.
It has nice grains that have a distinct charm, it is durable and structurally solid with more than 50 species in the mahogany family.
Mahogany wood is a traditional favorite for fine furniture as the grains being attractive and coupled with durability therefore “true” mahogany wood is expensive.
Species logged in Americas are classified as the “true” mahogany due to the natural distribution of these species within America (Fine Woodworking 1995).
It has dark reddish brown colours and the grains are straighter with medium fine to coarse texture. It is rated as durable in resistance to decay, fungi and moderately resistance to termites.
There are many closely related African, Cuban and South East Asian wood that are classified under mahogany.
Southeast Asia countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines produces a variety of hardwoods but most are from the tree species known as the Philippine mahogany or another name Meranti, however it is not nearly as strong compared to the American mahogany (Fine Woodworking 1995).
Philippine mahogany or Meranti wood has light to dark red colours that has long straight lines, with coarser texture than as compared to the “true” mahogany.
The light red, whitish and yellow meranti woods are lighter in weight and considered as not suitable for outdoor condition as compared to the dark red meranti (U.S. Department of Agriculture 2011).
Most light red, whitish and yellow meranti are used in areas of structural framing, guitars body and indoor furniture.
The dark red meranti are used in boat building as it is the heaviest, strongest and has rot resistant properties (Westin 2013), which also makes it the suitable wood for outdoor and indoor furniture.
Check out the Youtube Video by Alchemy Fine Living, on sharing how to refurbish a mahogany table top: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx3EP9ljNRk
References:
Fine Woodworking. 1995. Wood: The Best of Fine Woodworking. Connecticut: Taunton Press.
Mike Westin. 2013. Upgrading Your Boat’s Interior. London: Adlard Coles Nautical.
US Department of Agriculture. 2012. The Encyclopaedia of Wood. Connecticut: Skyhorse Publishing.
