Trade Name: Araputanga

Origin: Widely distributed in Central and South America.

Appearance: Colour varies from light pink to darker orangey red. Mahogany is fine to medium texture, with uniform to interlocking grain, ranging from straight to wavy or curly.

Mechanical: It has relatively high bending strength. Hardness and weight are rated as moderate, and density is high. Density is approximately 560 kg/m3.

Availability: There is a large supply of this hardwood and has recently become available from a small number of forests which have FSC accreditation. Square edged kiln dried wide or long boards.

Timber Cuts: Mahogany is one of the world’s finest cabinet timbers and its popularity is due to a combination of excellent working and finishing properties, stability and attractive appearance. Furniture, cabinets, high-class internal and external joinery, boat building, flooring are some of the uses of mahogany as a timber.

Veneer Cuts: It has outstanding technical qualities which make it suitable for precision woodwork such as engineers’ patterns, instrument cases, printers’ blocks and parts of musical instruments.

Relative Costs: 5

Properties: It is easy to work, either with hand or machine tools. It has good nailing and screwing properties, and turns and carves superbly.

Seasoning: Dries fairly rapidly and has little tendency to check or distort. Mahogany is incredibly stable.