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Is there such a thing as true Honduran Mahog. How can you tell the difference.

Bob,

Whisper to it sweetly in Spanish and see if it replies

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Dave White
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". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

There is another species of mahogany called sweitinia humillis that is
listed
on cites as honduras mohagany and is now comercialy extinct like cuban.
Humislis is a lot denser a bit like true cuban.

But in truth any true honduras is either humilis or marophyla (there is no
such thing as microphylla acording to my research small leaf mahogany is
sweitinaia mahogani) that comes from honduras.
And seeing that mahogany is no longer exported from honduras it is
umnlikely that you wil ever find any true honduras mahogany (unless you
know someone who has some 150 year old stock )

Anyway this is one of the reasons that we name mahogany depending on
where it came from here in england as it can cause confusion.
What you call honduras in the states we call brazilian or puruvian etc
depending on where it came from in england.

But i think as a general rule if you see something dscribed as honduras
mahogany you safely bet it is sweiteinia macrophylla.

This is again a subjet that many people have diferent veiws on but if just
class macrophylla as honduras then you cant go wrong.

As for tellig the diference,
That comes with time and experience cuban has a polished feel to it when
planes simmaler to a rosewood or other denser wood and often has white
specles in the end grain it also astodd says has a redish color that we
often assosiate with quality mahogany.
Humillis often black specles in the end grain and again has a polished feel
and looks simmalar to cuban.

Macrophylla is slightly courser and has laeger pores than both the other
types of mahogany and varies alot more in quality as it more widly grown
and hardier to extreme growing conditions so is the most widly used
plantation mahogany.

As for kayha its not a true mahogany and is very course and open grained
but like todd i have had some realy good stuff that is hard to tell apart
from macrophylla apart from the slightly courser feel.

I hope this helps you but like i said you will soon be able to tell the good
from the bad the more you use the diferent types.

Joel.

Great info. all, thanks!
For now, until I learn, I'll trust our great vendors.

Good stuff from Joel and Todd. I'll add that ther are probably up to six Khaya species that get lumped together in commercial production. Unless a person works with a lot of Khaya and experiences the wide range of physical properties, feather light pink, brittle to dark red or golden and very heavy they can easily conclude false impressions.

What puts Khaya into the mahogany family (Meliaceae) is primarily that it and Swietenia both contain oleoresins.

"Cuban" mahogany is technically known as West Indian mahogany and if it ain't from Cuba it ain't "Cuban". It is native from Southern Florida thru out the West Indies.

Hey Larry my friend, you can split hairs almost as well as I can!

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That post went up to fast..wasn't done with it...add this

I suppose it's OK to call all jacaranda BRW also? Far as I'm concerned any name can be tagged to any wood by anyone any time. It's always buyer beware, but there is a certain sort of implication when wood sellers trade on a higher valued name.

Don, you or anyone are certainly entitled to a way of thinking about marketing wood by trade names or shop made figure names tagged on stuff. I'll do biz my way, thanks. To each his/her own as they say, my friend.

Yes i have some very old stock sweitinia mahogani in my invontary that
that was imported from from jamaica in 1908.
Whilst this is in theory "cuban" type mahogany it is not true cuban as it
came from jamaica origonaly.

I do however also have a large amount true cuban that was stockpiled by
a cabinet maker over 90 years ago and is over 150 years old.

This is slightly finer grained than the stuff from jamaica and has a more
golden red coulor where as the jamaican has a more orange red coulor
and slightly larger pores.

In the same stock there is some true honduras(macrophylla from
honduras) and the only way we could tell the honduras appart from the
cuban was,

A, feel the honduran was slightly courser with larger pores.

B, the honduras has a larger center pith than the cuban.

apart from that it was quite hard to tell as the whole lot was mixed stock
and had been stored for so long that all the boards were black.

The honduras had just as rich a colour as the cuban when planed and i
had to very carefull when picking out the genuine cuban stock.

Once you have seen these woods in the flesh and worked with them there
is no mistaking them for the type of mahogany we get these days.

They dident call it the king of woods for nothing.
Good true mahogany is a joy to behold and one of my favourate woods.

Joel.

Todd, thanks for posting that, it clears a lot up for me.

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David White, Toronto

"All my favourite singers can't sing."