Please can someone identify this wood for me?

GrumpyOldMan

GrumpyOldMan

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Hello all,
My daughter is building a solid body Uke as part of her A Level product design. I have this piece of wood which I think is Mahogany. But my wife thinks it is Teak. Can anyone identify it please? It is actually a Shove Ha'penny table which I paid £4.00 for at a boot sale. I think it is probably a 1960's or 70's thing judging by the box. It is 21mm thick after the grooves have been removed so she is planning on sandwhiching it together to make a solid piece.

Mahog.jpg


Mahog3.jpg


Mahog2.jpg


Thanks in anticipation,

Ian.
 
It's not teak - could be sapele based on how the grain keeps changing direction. Hard to tell without seeing it in the flesh. Is it pretty heavy?
 
Yes it is fairly heavy. I guess Sapele is okay for a solid body? Her teacher wants to use a kind of MDF but I think if it's worth doing it's worth doing well and don't mind using this. I bought it with this in mind and don't think of it as being "Trashed" lol. It's not actually easy to get suitable woods anywhere round here so this seemed an ideal solution.

thanks for the replies,
Ian.
 
Sapele will work, but is heavy (!) and might be difficult to plane if you're a beginner.

If it smells a bit like toilet freshener when you sand it, that's sapele..
 
You are joking Ian aren't you? You are in the heart of timber merchant country... It's an African hardwood - sapele, utile they are all the same - tricky. Typical know nothing DT teacher - MDF? Why are they using such an obvious carcinogen in schools?
 
To be fair, the nearest thing you'll get for the same money at a timber yard is meranti, which wouldn't look as nice as that..
 
It looks like big leaf mahogany to me...I would guess it's older than that too, but what do I know? I believe mahogany from British Honduras (now Belize) was cheap and plentiful in the UK at one time.
 
Pete Howlett said:
You are joking Ian aren't you? You are in the heart of timber merchant country... It's an African hardwood - sapele, utile they are all the same - tricky. Typical know nothing DT teacher - MDF? Why are they using such an obvious carcinogen in schools?
Click to expand...

Am I?? I've lived here 53 years and never knew that. Whereabouts are they and I'll get in touch. That would be excellent. My son made a Bass Guitar and we got a lovely piece of ash from a local woodturning company but they went out of business last year.

I don't think the teacher understands that this is a serious musical instrument. However it is all being cut with a CNC router from a CAD design and should be good when it's done. The wood he actually wants her to use is what he calls "Modelwood", I'm assuming it's a type of MDF, I hope it's not Balsa! He's also suggested prototyping plastic. I think he thinks anything else is a waste of wood!

Cheers,
Ian.
 
John Boddy is at Boroughbridge, Charlesworths in Kirkby... I did my degree in Sheffield and tho not Lancashire we used to travel to yards all over the North (for a souutherner you will know what I mean when I say that). Get in touch with Rob Collins - he has a friendly merchant he deals with plus there are no end of bargains to be picked up on eBay...

Regardless of how it is going to be made a solid piece of wood is always the answer for a musical instrument. Yep, make the model out of dense foam - easy to machine - to check tool paths and aesthetics but the final piece in solid wood.
 
Pete Howlett said:
John Boddy is at Boroughbridge, Charlesworths in Kirkby... I did my degree in Sheffield and tho not Lancashire we used to travel to yards all over the North (for a souutherner you will know what I mean when I say that). Get in touch with Rob Collins - he has a friendly merchant he deals with plus there are no end of bargains to be picked up on eBay...

Regardless of how it is going to be made a solid piece of wood is always the answer for a musical instrument. Yep, make the model out of dense foam - easy to machine - to check tool paths and aesthetics but the final piece in solid wood.
Click to expand...

I've been looking on ebay and not found anything yet. Time is getting short now actually, I think there is only a month or so left before it has to be done.
I also keep saying it has to be wood (REAL wood) but the teacher knows nothing about musical instruments and is taking some persuading. One prototype has already been made from foam and now the final tweaking has been done in CAD it is time to do the machining.
I know someone who is friends with Rob Collings so I may get in touch.
Thanks for your help.

Ian.
 
Unbelievable. My Daughter and the Technician worked out a cutting plan which just fit onto the shove 'apenny table (it's two piece which was to be glued). But then the teacher realised that it wouldn't fit in the machine so he cut the wood in half and machined the body with the grain running sideways!
Back to the drawing board?

Ian.
 
Pete Howlett said:
Typical know nothing DT teacher - MDF? Why are they using such an obvious carcinogen in schools?
Click to expand...

You've answered your own question there Pete. They are "using such an obvious carcinogen in schools" because they are "Typical know nothing DT teachers".

MDF is a DT teacher's dream material. They seem to thrive on dust and there are few ways of effortlessly creating dust better than bunging some MDF in a cnc router. Despite having the structural integrity of a digestive biscuit, MDF exhibits so many favourable qualities for the average DT teacher. It is dimensionally stable so they never have to consider expansion/contraction and humidity related conditions. It has no grain direction to confound users of proper woodworking tools like chisels and planes. It's homogenous consistency is ideal for cnc machining, the favourite tool of the DT teacher, because these machines are also incapable of taking into account the basic, natural, organic qualities of wood such as grain direction and variations in density.

Please don't get me started on DT teachers......... dammit you already have.......... now I'll have to take some more medication and go and lie down in a darkened room. Just one more week to the easter holidays ..........Just one more week to the easter holidays.................Just one more week .........
 
Rob-C said:
What dimensions do you need?
Click to expand...
Too late now. the Ukulele has to be finished by Friday! Thanks though.

I still can't believe the bloody teacher did that without telling her first. I had already been asked why the grain had to run top to bottom but he did it anyway. I would rather have had a properly machined MDF body than a poor solid one. He appears to be completely clueless about materials but he is teaching to A level.

Clifford, come back and finish your rant, you only just got started.

Ian.
 
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