Working with mahagony

[lwhughes149]

I am making two mahagony nightstands and running into chipping with the wood. Tablesaw cuts are ok, new blade, but planning has resulted in chip out on some of the ends and chipping across the cut of many pieces. Can anyone give my any suggestions as to what the reason maybe? I read on the net that mahagony is a good wood to work with, not so with me. I thought about dull blades on the planer but I didn't have this problem with the last project with oak. Thanks

 

[lottathought]

How aggressive are you planing? Have you tried making more passes with less on each pass taken off?

 

[Travis Porter]

Are the blades dull since you have planed the oak?

I find mahogany excellent to work with, but the grain can get wild and cause some issues. Make sure you are planing with the grain and making light passes. Angle the boards through the planer as well.

Welcome back Lorraine! I haven't seen you posting in some time and wondered if you had quit WW'ing all together.

 

[FredP]

turn the piece around and plane the other direction. mahogany machines well but the grain can be raised by almost sharp knives like any other wood. changing direction usually cure this.:icon_thum it also has a lot of silica in it and will dull tools fairly quick even though it is a soft wood compared to other hardwoods.

 

[truckjohn]

Yep... That is a sure sign of a bunch of runout in Mahogany....
If the grain is really ropey -- it can do that too.... because the contrasting ropey stripes are actually grain running in opposite directions.

1st -- I would do as Fred suggests.. Turn it around and take a lighter cut... Make sure those knives are sharp.

If it still does it .... just move on to Sanding it instead.. Sanding is your friend... It's guaranteed not to tear out!

Thanks

John

 

[mlzettl]

My first question is what do you mean by "mahogany?" The word is now used to describe quite a few different genus and species of wood, and the working characteristics can vary widely. In my experience, true mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla, Swietenia mahogani) are wonderful woods to work with and tend to tear out very little. With a ribbon stripe figure, there will be reversing grain, and some tear out may occur.

African mahogany (Khaya ivorensis) is notoriously difficult to plane because of the reversing and interlocked grain. I tend to leave it oversized, and then sand or scrape it to the desired dimension.

Other species like sapele and andiroba are sometimes sold as mahogany as well.

Finally, Phillipiine mahogany, which is actually better called red luan, is almost impossible to achieve any kind of smooth surface. It fuzzes up no matter what you do. I doubt that this is what you are talking about.

Regardless of which of these woods you are actually dealing with, the advice of the previous posters is good. Unfortunately, if you have stock with reversing grain as in the ribbon stripe figure, each time you reverse the feed direction in the jointer or planer, the grain that you just smoothed in the last pass will tear out. Very light cuts, very sharp blades, and sanding will be what is required.

Hope this helps.

Matt

 

[lwhughes149]

Ok guys, this was the clients choice not mine. I have never used it before and yes it is mahagony, and it appears to have what you call reverse patterns in the piece that is giving me so much trouble. The piece I have chosen for the tops is a straight grain so with any luck that will be easier to work with. I think the sander will have to be my friend. And no I certainly haven't given up woodworking, not in the least. Looks like this year will be my year to acturally bring in some money with my hobby. Thanks to all of you for the suggestions, they were a great help. I will do my best to post pics once the two pieces are ready for delivery. Thanks again.

 

[mpallen826]

Oh yea, overly aggressive planing will pull some grain - found out on my first mahogany planing adventure. Jointing is ok but surfacing takes patience (good practice for me :roll.

If the pulls are not too deep - move on to the sanding phase. :XXcompute

 

[Larry Rose]

Lorraine, Matt is right what you've got is proably african mahogany. It's what you get if you paid around $5 or $6 for it and was called genuine mahogany. I use it a lot and it does have some tear out or sometime a tendency to "fuz up". In addition to the rest of the advice I would add to learn to use a card scraper. They really help me. Good luck.

 

[DaveD]

Also plane the boards before you cut them to size. That way you can eleminate any tearout or snipe on the ends of the boards (because you will cut them off on the final cuts).

I have planed mahogany/sapele in my planer after running probably 700-800 board feet of red oak through it. Planer is still on its original (not resharpened) blades and still does a very nice job.