Mango Wood For Pistol, Rifle, or Musket Stocks?

[Daveboone]

If using the mango wood (which looks a lot like walnut to me) , I wonder what regionally appropriate locally grown ML might be appropriate to match it too for the fun of it?

 

[PathfinderNC]

Curious as to how dense and heavy Mango wood is. Some tropical woods can really get up there!
(I was in Palawan, Philippines years ago and carved a paddle for my Banka boat. I think the wood was Ipil-Ipil (?) or Nara.
It was beautiful but I soon realized, to my dismay, that it sank )

 

[Brokennock]

Curious as to how dense and heavy Mango wood is. Some tropical woods can really get up there!
(I was in Palawan, Philippines years ago and carved a paddle for my Banka boat. I think the wood was Ipil-Ipil (?) or Nara.
It was beautiful but I soon realized, to my dismay, that it sank )

I believe that info is in the reply with the wood database screenshots.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

. I do not know if the Spanish ever used it for stocks here because there was / is a multitude of other woods available for stocks, however I hate to see the wood go to waste if it can be used. What are your thoughts on this please. Regards, Dave

So what I would do is remove the bark from the tree pieces, and PAINT the ends of the pieces with oil based paint. I was taught that when self drying harvested wood, that to prevent cracks from forming lengthwise due to drying, one paints the ends of the log(s) with oil based paint, or latex if one cannot obtain oil based paint, and thus the drying is slow and thorough and even, throughout the wood. Normally this drying is done inside a shed.

YES this takes a LOT longer to dry out the wood for stock use, but because you will have shrinkage, you "roll the dice" if you cut some sort of "stock blank" before the wood is dry as it often dries out too small unless done by an expert

ALSO, even if you have smaller pieces that won't work for a rifle or smoothbore stock, consider pistols, knife handle blanks, and even pieces that might be turned for fountain pens (which is a very popular side-line for the guys that do woodworking using a lathe). It'd be really cool (imho) if ten years from now you had a nice shotgun with mango stock, and the metal bits were financed by selling off mango wood knife handle blanks, revolver grip blanks, and fountain pen blanks.

LD

 

[PathfinderNC]

I believe that info is in the reply with the wood database screenshots.

What info would that be?

 

[1950DAVE]

On wood-database.com.

 

[Buff1958]

It makes beautiful knife handles! But it is used in a stabilized form. You would probably work it more like walnut. Wood database on mango, sugar maple, and walnut. Food for thought.

great looking knives

 

[Brokennock]

What info would that be?

The density/weight

 

[1950DAVE]

Again refer to wood-database.com

 

[Loja man]

Where I grew up in South America they did not use the mango wood for anything. It was soft compared to other woods they worked with. So prone to have termites chewing it up! thought mango trees in our area would grow fairly large it would be hard to find a suitable section to do much with.

 

[Loja man]

great looking knives

Thanks!!