Andy Dingley wrote in
:

On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 14:21:11 GMT, MattH
wrote:

But, the color is not really
what I expected.

That's because it's not mahogany.

18th century mahogany is Caribbean and a beautiful red colour. Now the
stuff is seriously endangered and what little is around is very rare
(if it's legal), expensive (mine was $30 / bd. ft.) and often of poor
quality (the good stuff goes to the big guys, not the likes of you and
me)

"mahogany" these days is African (if you're in Europe) or SE Asian.
Most is non-sustainable rainforest, often illegally logged (all of the
Cambodian, most of the Indonesian). It's pretty ugly too, and the
colour is a dull brown - African is probably the worst, but that
depends on what species (khaya species are some of the better
options).

AIUI, central american mahogany is still available in the USA. This
stuff isn't as good as real Cuban _Swietenia mahagoni_, but it's
close. Figure is OK, but the colour is poor.

So you dye or otherwise colour it. I use dragon's blood in a spirit
varnish (18th century recipe with copal and sandarac) or in blonde
shellac.


I'm pretty sure that the more recent stuff that I bought is Honduras
mahogany. The grain is quite nice and it is a pink tone before being
exposed to light. The last 1-2 inches of the boards were exposed to
light and were a very nice dark red. I'd believe that the first batch
was something else since the color was, as you described, not very nice
at all. Well.. thanks for the reply. I'll have to see how it looks
after getting a tan and then I'll try my hand at coloring Shellac.
Makes me kind of regret spending extra to get the garnet shellac. I
could have just got ultra blonde and toned it anyway. I also wish that
the lumber yards would start referring to wood by the tree species. It
would be a bit more complicated but then there wouldn't be the confusion
over which flavor they are selling.
Thanks again,
Matt