Old Mahogany Veneer

[Gary Laroff]

The objective of this post is to ask for some guidance on all aspects of this find.  Can anyone shed more light or knowledge on the veneer?  Are there other reliable sources for this material and at what typical price?  Should I rush back and buy all I can, etc.?

Following up on a local private-home source for marquetry veneer, I came upon what is claimed to be 150 - 170 year old Honduras and Cuban mahogany.  The fellow selling it is in the right business and moved from Boston about the right time for the source and story to seem plausible.  I don't doubt what he has told me.

I bought five sheets of the Honduras mahogany veneer.  The sheets are 1/8 inch thick, generally 14 to 22 inches wide with some minor voids and some splits.  The sheets are dead flat and roughly 8 ft. long.  The price was good.  Considering what it would have cost to ship it flat to me here in Oregon from the Midwest or East Coast, the veneer was a bargain as it just fit in my truck and there were no shipping costs.

The veneer was cut with a circular saw blade, like a table saw.  From the very visible arcs, the blade appears to have been 60 to 70 inches in diameter.  This matches the large range available on the Coe segmented veneer saws that I looked up.

The grain looks exciting, busy and very tight, but it is very dusty and I haven't cleaned it up at all.

From this description, is this material commonly available and if so, from whom?  Although I am mahogany poor at the moment having just bought large table-size planks of crotch mahogany as well as loads of 12/4 and 16/4, should I rush back and buy all the Honduras mahogany veneer that he has left, which includes 6 or more pieces from the same flitch?  Any other advice?

He also has 1/16 inch Cuban mahogany veneer and gave me some "scraps", some of which are over three feet long but narrow and ragged.  It looks like fabulous veneer and I plan to glue a chunk down on MDF and finish it with orange or garnet shellac to see what it is like.  Since I can't find a source for Cuban mahogany veneer, is this worth investigating further?

Any information you can supply would be appreciated.  This is not a solicitation to sell what I have.  I'm asking for advice.  Feel free to contact me off this forum if you prefer.

Regards,
Gary Laroff
Portland, Oregon

 

[Mark Arnold]

Gary,

Nice find. You didn't say if the sheets were sequentially sawn, but if its not going to break the bank you should make sure you have enough on hand for any project you can envision.

Here is what Berkshire Veneer says about it on their web site: " Mahogany, Cuban: Unfortunately, this one goes under the "yeah, right" category. Can't get it…if you have some to sell, be sure to let us know!" If you know it is Cuban and the sizes are right, look at it as an investment in a future project.

 

[jprconsulting]

Gary, I had chance to buy some 1/8" mahogany that was used for sheeting on PT boats from WWII.

I bought some Cuban mahogany veneer.  Real stuff.  Not cheap but it is nice.

Contact me and we can discuss.  We met at Marc Adams a few years ago.

[email protected]

 

[dkeller_nc]

Were it me, yeah, I'd buy all that was available.  I've not found any veneer supplier that was willing to sell quality material at 1/8" thick - the thickest custom-sawn I've seen is 1/16" from Berkshire veneers.

While the story you were told seems reasonably plausible, I rather doubt the wood is quite that old.  170 years would put it back to the 1830's, and I don't think metallurgy had advanced sufficiently to allow the production of a 60" diameter circular blade.  Moreover, a steam engine of the era would really not be sufficiently powerful to run such a blade - though engines from the 1880s could.

Nevertheless, quality mahogany is becoming very hard to get.  If the grain is small and tight and the figure is good, I'd buy all I could get of it.

 

[albreed]

Gary-Hope you bought it all and asked questions later-Al