Flattening a monster piece of mahogany

10/30/05, 3:45 AM #1

Gary Miller
Guest

Flattening a monster piece of mahogany

Gary Miller

>Got lucky today.

Bought a 16+" wide, 2' thick, 72" long piece of honduran mahogany (at $4.35/bd ft!). Wonderful color--I know there is a hall table lurking in this piece. Also bought some other 8/4 mahogany that looks like it came from the same tree--color match is excellent, so I'll have plenty of stock for the frame.

The down side is that there is a mean twist in the wide board.

Got good use from my #40, #5.5, #8, and winding sticks. I flattened the non-face side today (about 1.5 hours work). Thicknessing and flattening the face side will be alot more work--but what great fun on a beautiful, fall day. Sore arms, shavings everywhere and the sweet smell of mahogany. It was a good day.

God I love handtool work!

Gary

Re: Flattening a monster piece of mahogany

10/31/05, 12:49 AM #2

Jim Reed@Tallahassee
Guest

Scrubbing will give you Popeye arms

Jim Reed@Tallahassee

>sweat in your eyes, and a song in your heart.

Re: Flattening a monster piece of mahogany

10/31/05, 4:10 AM #3

Dan Donaldson
Member
Offline
5,264 posts

Registered: 9/17/01

Just do it in the winter with the heat off ;-)

Dan Donaldson

>

- - -

I have been woodworking for about 25 years now, and would consider myself an enthusiastic amateur. My claim to fame (or infamy) has always been fixing stuff. I spent time in the Air Force in the 60's then went to work as an electronic technician for civil service. I finally got my EE, and being fed up with the civil service nonsense, took a job with Ford Motor Company until I went with the split to Visteon last year. I got interested in music and started playing in a bluegrass band. I wanted a new guitar, and that kind of led me into woodworking. I bought some books, a few tools, and built a guitar. Luckily, I didn't know any better than to try that as a first ever project. I still play it when I get a chance, so it must not be too bad if it can live for over 20 years. After a stint in Mexico for my job, I moved into a new house and built a small shop. Since then I have been collecting tools and skills, probably more of the former than the latter ;-). Finding this site has done more for my skills and enjoyment than anything else. I have learned a lot and really enjoy the friendships that I have made here. I have been married to LOML (Lori) for 32 years now and have 6 kids. When they are all gone, I want to get a 1 bedroom house (so there is not room for them to move back in) and at least a 6 car heated/air conditioned garage for a shop. (Dream on...)

Re: Flattening a monster piece of mahogany

11/1/05, 6:16 PM #4

Bob Doyle
Guest

Re: Flattening a monster piece of mahogany

Bob Doyle

>Gary,

Unless the hall stand will be using boards the near entire length and width of your boards, cutting to rough length and width first may save you a lot of planing as the twist and cup will be reduced in the smaller pieces. There was a great article about dimensioning lumber that Gary Rogowski did for Fine Woodworking a while back that, even though he was using power tools, it still holds true for manual operations (rough rip & crosscut then face jointing, edge jointing, thicknessing and final dimensioning to width and length)

Re: Flattening a monster piece of mahogany

11/1/05, 7:02 PM #5

Stephen in Ottawa
Guest

Re: Flattening a monster piece of mahogany

Stephen in Ottawa

>Gary,

I'd advise against flattening the entire board as one piece, as someone else has already suggested. Rough cut your pieces first. You'll have *much* less flattening to do and waste less of the thickness of your wood.

- Stephen

Re: Flattening a monster piece of mahogany

11/2/05, 1:17 AM #6

Gary Miller
Guest

Good suggestions--thanks

Gary Miller

>The table will probably be only 15" x 60" max, so I'm flattening 12" of the main twist! Not too bright sometimes.

Gary

Flattening a monster piece of mahogany

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