Is at least some of this Mahogany?

[MJP]

I'm having great difficulty finding any cheap hardwood around here - for example, I went to our local charity recycling place today and asked if they had any scrap hardwood - "No chance mate, it's like gold" was the reply.

So I invested £3 in this old table at a local recycling emporium (aka junk yard) in the hope that at least some of it is mahogany.

I'm not yet any good at identifying wood, but am I right in thinking that all the component parts of the drawer shown are mahogany? if not mahogany, what wood could it be? - the whole drawer seems to be made from the same wood.

Bear in mind that this table benefitted (!) from being left out in the Welsh climate for Goodness know how long before I was fooled into buying it.

Martin.

 

[MJP]

Ooops! Forgot the pics!

 

[Ttrees]

Hello
I might guess sipo/utile judging from the fleck on the small panel in the top pic.
I think you might have to scrape some to get a better idea of the timber colour.
Its definitely not iroko anyway, don't think it looks to be red meranti as I have never seen fleck like that in red meranti.
How hard is it, have you got anything to compare it to?
I can't honestly say for sure if I have any mahogany, but I've plenty of red timbers.
Meranti is a bit softer and sapelle is harder with ribbon stripes seen frequently.
I would say sipo is somewhere in the middle of those
Sorry I cant be of more help, but to suggest more pics with some freshly scraped bits.
The legs could be different species as I have often came across this before.
Interested in this topic, very much

Tom

 

[MJP]

Hi Tom -

I had a go at wiggling the drawers and, with the aid of exposure to damp for some time, I was able to dismantle them completely without damage. It certainly confirms that hide glue can't take the damp!

After admiring the hand-cut dovetails now that I am beginning to learn how difficult they are, I tried "weighing" the different parts in my hand and there are, I think, two different woods.

The drawer fronts are heavy, hard, and they ring when you strike them with the wooden handle of a screwdriver.

The rest of the drawer is of a softer, less dense, red wood, similar in character (apart from the colour) to pine. The sides don't ring, they just give a dull thud.

You could well be correct about the legs being a different wood again - they look to me like weathered dirty oak.

I've attached a pic of the drawer side and front, both sanded at the top ends. The drawer side is at left and feels lighter and softer than the drawer front, which is clearly far harder. My apologies for the slight out-of-focus. I'm as good at taking pics as I am at identifying wood...

Martin.

 

[custard]

That piece is slightly puzzling.

At first glance it's what's called "Jacobethan", a mish mash of Jacobean and Elizabethan styles that was mass produced in the interwar period. But Jacobethan stuff was almost always Oak, the really cheap stuff was occasionally Chestnut, and the really pricey stuff was occasionally Walnut. Mahogany is not what you associate with that style of furniture. Here's typical Jacobethan,

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Oak-Writing-D ... SwCU1Yoh42

The puzzle is that the shots of your drawer show far better quality construction than you usually get on inter war Jacobethan, the normal stuff has machine cut dovetails with thicker drawer sides and the drawer bottom let straight into the sides. If you go through the photos on this item you'll see an example of the mass produced drawer that I'm talking about,

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1920-s-Antiqu ... SwJH1ZNSnN

The drawer you show isn't like that. It's got hand cut dovetails, elegantly thin drawer sides, and drawer slips. That's slightly confusing because the quality of the drawer construction is better than the overall design of the piece (the turning for example is a bit bland for a premium item).

On balance that suggests it's pre 1st World War, maybe even Victorian. But even in those earlier pieces it was still the norm to use Oak (with Oak or Chestnut drawer sides and back, and Cedar or Pine drawer bottoms). So I'm puzzled where Mahogany comes from in all this?

One question, is the top solid, or is it veneered with solid moulded lippings?

 

[custard]

Our posts crossed, it seems you're going through the same steps I did!

 

[MJP]

Hi Custard - -thanks for joining in.

I suspect that this is a bit of an "all spare parts" item - the table top has been screwed onto the frame, for example.

I read the long thread about drawer bottom construction, drawer slips, and so on, last week - I learned a lot, thank you.

The top is three 1/2" thick boards which have now separated with the damp. They are sold wood, not veneered and look to be the same as the drawer fronts.

I haven't removed the top yet since the screws are of course rusty and determined not to cooperate.

The legs and apron are of a lighter colour and may be oak.

There also used to be something at the top rear corners - you can just see the shadows in the pic of the table- a rectangle 7" deep and 13" wide, like you see on old dressing tables, at each rear corner...A box with a drawer, for example.

One gets the impression that the top and drawers came from one source the rest from another, and they were married by Lovejoy.

Martin.

 

[MJP]

Where a screwdriver fails, a crowbar won't....

I've taken the top off - the narrowest strip feels and looks like the drawer fronts while the other two strips are more like the drawer sides in feel though they aren't quite as red - they are softer and haven't sanded down nearly as well.

This really is a table of parts!

Martin

 

[custard]

There also used to be something at the top rear corners - you can just see the shadows in the pic of the table- a rectangle 7" deep and 13" wide, like you see on old dressing tables, at each rear corner.

That was common practise for a long time, turn a dressing table (low demand) into a writing desk (higher demand). In the trade they're sometimes called "orphans", parts from items of furniture that have been "repurposed" to try and capture a few extra quid. It doesn't happen much anymore, because low to middle market antique furniture prices have now crashed to such incredibly low levels that those kind of tricks no longer pay.

No matter. £3 wouldn't buy you much in a timber yard, so you've done pretty well!

It's still not saying "Mahogany" to me though!

 

[MJP]

No, my choice of that word was simply to express my ignorance.

But I'm happy - I've got two drawer fronts and one small top piece of some very hard nice wood, and further pieces of some reasonable red wood for £3 plus I've learned a bit.

Looks like a decent deal to me.

Martin.

 

[AndyT]

I wonder if some of it could be satin walnut (American Red Gum)?
I think that is what I used, from an old cupboard, when I made my chair-steps. Very straight grained, mild and easy to work. Widely used for ordinary furniture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

 

[MJP]

Could well be Andy - looks very much like it. At least, it isn't pine and it isn't oak, which was the object of my exercise today.
Martin.

 

[SteveF]

I found this an interesting post
I often look at old furniture with a view to cutting up for the wood...criminal in a way
so many piano's sell for 50p to a pound but I wonder if worth the hassle
trouble I find is nobody knows what they are really selling and so many veneered stuff out there, that you could drive around for ages

Steve

 

[MJP]

Looks to me, around this area at least Steve, that the only way that a hobbyist can find any decent wood is to strip old furniture. It all depends upon what you can get in your car!

For example, there's an offer this morning on our local Freecycle for "a big dark wood dresser, very heavy" which is probably good timber, but you have to draw the line somewhere.

My approach is to just keep your eyes open when you travel around, I don't actively go looking for stuff - it's too cost-ineffective, as you say.

Yesterday for example I pulled a nice 4ft long 4" square piece of oak from a skip that I was passing.

I may have watched too many You Tube American dumpster-diving videos........

Martin.

 

[monkeybiter]

If I may but in with a general question about timber re-use from old furniture, how would you prepare the wood when it's already at the appropriate thickness for use but there may be some finish on it that needs removing? It would possibly be too thin to bang it through the thicknesser.

 

[MJP]

Go out and look for a thicker bit of wood Monkeybiter?

- but seriously, one finds bits of wood and makes what one can from them., rather than the other way around.

In my case, I'm mainly trying to learn to do inlays and other twiddly things, so contrary to common assumption, size doesn't matter.

As a matter of interest, what finishes would one come across in old furniture, say pre-WW1 stuff? Would it be drying oils and/or shellac, in which case one might have some success with just wiping over with meths or suchlike?

Martin.

 

[whiskywill]

trouble I find is nobody knows what they are really selling and so many veneered stuff out there, that you could drive around for ages

I once drove around twenty miles to pick up a free "solid walnut" bed headboard which turned out to be walnut in colour, but only the veneer. The ply underneath could be clearly seen on the lower edge.

 

[AndyT]

If I may but in with a general question about timber re-use from old furniture, how would you prepare the wood when it's already at the appropriate thickness for use but there may be some finish on it that needs removing? It would possibly be too thin to bang it through the thicknesser.

When I have used old wood (which I like doing) I have either scraped or planed the old finish off. I am after the good wood hidden inside. When you are making something to suit yourself there is plenty of scope to vary dimensions - there's no law that says every component must be a standard size. Indeed, furniture often looks better when the parts are slender rather than chunky, I think.
I don't have a thicknesser so I do this by hand - which may mean I remove a little bit less wood to get below the surface than if I used machinery.

 

[custard]

When you are making something to suit yourself there is plenty of scope to vary dimensions - there's no law that says every component must be a standard size.

+1

Avoid dull as ditchwater 18mm-3/4", 30mm-1 1/4", 50mm-2" standard dimensions, or your furniture will look like everything else on the high street. It's surprising how even tiny departures from those done to death sizings can make an item look fresh and original.

Just be aware that some dimensions are popular for a reason, if you're jointing up a top for example, as you drop below 18mm it becomes progressively harder to achieve a flat and stable result, not impossible, just harder. Or if you're making up legs then 30mm x 30mm is about as small as you want to go with straightforward M&T's before the integrity of the joinery suffers.

 

[custard]

one finds bits of wood and makes what one can from them, rather than the other way around.

If that works for you then fair enough. I'd still argue that for hardwood furniture making reclaimed materials can only ever be an adjunct to finding a reliable source of quality new timber. Most newcomers will need specific dimensions of specific woods to follow a training programme, and when they move on to bigger things they're likely to be working from plans, so will still need to source timber of a uniform colour to a prescribed cut list.

I used to work at a workshop that held regular open days, many hobbyist woodworkers fetched up with exactly the same two questions, "how do you sharpen your tools?" and, "where do you get your wood?" I appreciate timber buying is a serious problem for many people, but without a solution they'll likely struggle to make meaningful progress with hardwood woodworking.