Finishing Mahogany

Forget the tung oil. Fresh sanded mahogany will usually be a lighter color than you would expect. With exposure to light it will, over time, become the nice color you want. So use a clear finish, no tung oil and let it do its thing.

That said, African mahogany is a poor substitute for the real thing -- it is also much less expensive. Honduras mahogany is the real thing.

Bill

This may not be generic to your needs, but FWIW:

My experience with mahogany (genuine, or Honduras, in this case) is that it will change color unless given a fairly substantial coating of a resinous finish, such as a long-oil varnish, or even lacquer. The last boat we owned had quite a bit of external mahogany, which we varnished and refreshed annually. It continued to look great provided no breech in the finish was allowed. Exposure to UV will bleach it somewhat, and exposure to water will darken it.

My suspicion is that tung oil may not be the best finish for mahogany. There are some nearly-clear varnishes available, and of course lacquer can be had in absolutely clear varieties. I'd try either of those. Hope this is of some value.

Max

Tung oil is wonderful for bringing out a deep rich color. But if you want colors to stay bright and clear use lacquer. African mahoganey will almost always turn more brown than red, anyway. But lacquer will work better than tung oil.

Earl

Your other option is Shellac and a good wax (I use Briwax). The Shellac dries quickly and you can burnish it to a high gloss before you finish it off with the wax. I usually give it a good buffing with 0000 steel wool before the wax.

I have found that on some woods, and mahogany is one of them, there is a tendency for the grain to raise on one side of the turning, especially if you are turning a glue up. The finish does not was to go on evenly over the raised grain and I will turn the lathe off and apply the Shellac evenly over the entire turning and then turn it back on and do the burnishing.

Deb

than you would

want. So use a

So is it better to sand the Tung oil out, or just keep this in mind for next time? (IE, will the Tung oil prevent the color from darkening, or just not do anything useful)

also much less

Well, it's good enough for government work. I've yet to run across any Honduran Mahogany, and this stuff is awful nice all on it's own! Of course, there's always a best, but I feel the African variety is a real nice comprimise. Same goes for maples- I'd love to work exclusively with quited maple, but since bird's eye is what I can usually find and afford, that's what I use! Perhaps when I'm quite a lot better I'll go hunting for the really high-end woods.

Aut inveniam viam aut faciam

I doubt that you will be able to sand the tung oil out. So crack it up to a lesson learned and go on from there.

Honduras mahogany is imported from South America (Brazil), Guatemala, Belize and southern Mexico. It is available from people like Hibdon Hardwood

Bill

than you would

want. So use a

also much less

I've used danish oil (and no topcoat) on Honduran Mahogany with fantastic long term results for indoor fine furniture. I don't agree that tung oil (effectively the same thing), or your technique are necessarily the problem. Instead I think this may just be the way your Mystery Mahogany reacts to exposure to air or light.

Do you have any unfinished scrap or can you go get another small piece of the same wood from your hardwood supplier? Rip a scrap and compare the color of the freshly cut long grain with long grain that's been exposed to air for awhile. Even better, finish half the scrap with tung oil/wax, leave the other half unfinished, let sit for a couple days, then rip. No finish you'd use is impermeable to air, as you may know (otherwise humidity wouldn't have the effect on swelling/shrinking in furniture), so there's nothing you can do if air exposure is the culprit. Some finishes cut UV exposure.

Shellac is a topcoat finish which only imparts the color of the shellac to the wood. Same for lacquer and polyurethane. There are a lot of grades of shellac though--make sure to use blond or superblond if you want to preserve the natural color as closely as possible. Shellac is a great finish, but it has a short shelf life, so it's best to mix small batches up yourself with dry flakes and denatured alcohol (very easy). Fresh shellac is a dream for fast, high gloss finishing on the lathe, but old shellac is a nightmare (it doesn't cure, just stays tacky).

Of course if air exposure changes the wood, none of these topcoats would prevent that.

BTW, your mystery wood could be Philippine Mahogany, which starts ugly and stays ugly IMHO. For the future, if you can't find Honduran/"genuine" (rare, endangered), you might try Santos Mahogany, aka Brazilian Cherry. I used some recently: very red, almost the color of rosewood.

In article , snipped-for-privacy@comcast.net says... ...snip

...snip

I agree that Honduras Mahogany is endangered but not using it is no cure for the problem. In fact, not using it may make the problem worse.

Very few Honduras Mahogany trees survive beyond about 100 years as is the case for all rain forest trees. The soil is thin and poor in quality and the fiction about there being virgin rain forest is just that. So dead and unharvested mature Mahogany is a waste of resources. Some trees should be allowed to rot after death to improve the soil but a new problem is created when too many are allowed to rot -- the decay consumes oxygen. We need forests to process carbon dioxide and create oxygen -- something which is done only by young, properly maintained forests.

A number of countries have instituted well thought out programs to provide a supply of mature Mahogany logs to their mills which create jobs for the locals. I've personally seen the program in Guatemala working well -- they tell loggers which trees may be cut, they police the mills to be sure that only those trees marked by the government as legal are processed and they require the loggers to replant.

Mahogany, btw, cannot be farmed although it would be nice if it were possible. They grow properly only in thin stands and if crowded they will not survive. So, when a forest is logged and all mature Mahogany is removed, it is likely that you cannot tell that loggers have even been there -- there is no clear cutting because most of the trees are either too young or of species with no commercial value.

The idea of just not cutting anything is simple and has instant appeal. The problem, though, is that if the forest does not provide jobs and income, it will be turned into something else which does. The forest WILL be clear cut and citrus groves and banana plantations will replace the forest and then you have all the problems of maintaining a mono-culture where any diseased plant will eventually take out all of its neighbors.

And I haven't yet mentioned the most destructive use of the land so as to produce income -- cattle.

So... you help the world by using Honduras mahogany from countries which are harvesting it responsibly. And you harm the world by eating imported citrus fruit, bananas and beef.

Maybe a little food for thought...

Bill

Yes, well, ok, but anyway as I said, if you can't *find* it, you might try a suitable alternative, like Santos Mahogany. The word "endangered" is simply expressing a fact, not an agenda.

for the problem. In

The boatbuilding industry uses tons of Honduras mahogany annually. Check some of the wood suppliers in WOODENBOAT magazine for genuine mahogany of virtually any dimension. I've turned several bowls from 12/4 stock purchased from M. L. Condon.

Max

On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 18:57:34 GMT, "s.bernstein"

I think I've narrowed it down to technique, actually. When I made the matching candlestick, I spilled the tung oil onto the towel I was using to apply it, and really ended up applying a lot more than I did to the first piece. I was avoiding this, to try and keep the finish from getting all over the place, but it ended up being much closer to my desired result. So I think I may have "starved" the first couple of pieces by not getting them really soaked.

Interestingly enough, I hand planed the blanks before turning (to get a flat edge for ripping on the tablesaw) and the planed finish did not change color, even though I glued up the blanks and planed them weeks ago. It's possible that the dust from sanding filled up some of the pores, and is making things look lighter.

Just tried this on a hard maple mallet- it was my first time using shellac, and aside from the smell it looks stunning.

Absolutely not Luoun. I've used that before and this is not even in the same league. What I've got doesn't look *bad* by any strech of the imagination. The problem, if it could be considered a problem, is that when freshly stained it looked like a mixture of blood and chocolate, and now it looks like a mixture of honey and chocolate, with a little just a little orange. Still a very striking wood- I was just wondering why it faded the way it did. As stated above, it would certainly seem that it was a matter of really soaking the oil in. It is also beginning to darken again a little bit, and some of that red color is returning- go figure. On the bright side, my second attempt is just a touch smaller than the first one, so I'm just going to pop it back on the lathe, trim it to match, and finish it the same way! Aut inveniam viam aut faciam