Use of Mahogany for stock

[Gustavo Hoefs]

Hi everyone I am new to the forum and wanted to get some feed back from the members. When I am in south Florida I have access to local wood. I want to make a stock for a repro miquelete lock long gun out of mahogany anyone done this in the past or thinking about it in future ? Wasn't sure where to put the question so I took a chance under this part of the forum

 

[kurts]

I think that the wood is to soft, need a much harder wood for a stock.

 

[Bon Sauvage]

There are half a dozen types of woods that are considered mahogany depending on the source. Some of them are harder than walnut. Way harder”¦...

What type of mahogany are you contemplating?

 

[Gustavo Hoefs]

Hi Ogre - The guy that has the saw mill has some African Mahogany and Florida red bay plus others that I am not familiar with. They get taken down off private property some of the trunks I've seen are 2ft plus Dia. Last month I saw one had to be almost 3 feet At the base. He says he can cut to get flame or tiger stripe which I know to be possible having owned furniture with that quality of veneer.

 

[tenngun]

Just a thought. Mahogany is a tropical wood, Miquletts were southren European and were dieing out in the early 18th century. A gun may have been restocked with a local wood. With walnut ivory hard fruit woods avalible in southren europe and maple and beech impotable from northren Europe, would mahogany be the best choice for this sort of gun.
Of corse North Africa and Potugease controled Asiahad people making local style guns with miquletts placed on local woods :idunno:

 

[galamb]

I remember reading somewhere about English shotguns stocked in Mahogany but can't find the source, any pics or notes on the matter - must not of peaked much interest in the first place for me.

African Mahogany is generally the "street name" for Khaya.

Khaya is an African hardwood and not a true mahogany. Any wooden boat builders will be well familiar with Khaya which is a substitute for white oak and is used extensively for ribs/keels/decks on wooden boats (and if you buy Mahogany house trim from places like Lowe's etc, it's almost always African Mahogany).

There is a second (important) African Mahogany called Sapele which is almost exclusively sold under that name (so not to confuse it with Khaya).

And while Sapele is quite beautiful when finished, it's more decorative than structural in practical use.

Having a good pile of Khaya in my shop and having worked with it quite a bit over the years (on boats), while it is quite pretty and fairly easy to work with (compared to many woods) I would NOT stock a gun in Khaya.

Genuine Mahogany, which is what I suggest would have/might have been used on some shotguns is a different species all together. Most genuine mahogany is now protected under various export bans and came almost exclusively from Central/South America (street names include Honduras or South American Mahogany).

It is now "farmed" for export, but it is faster grown in a plantation environment so does not come with the same quality/strength that the natural/old growth stuff would have displayed even 50 years ago.

There is also a "whole whack" (over 100 species) of Philippine Mahogany which sells under the names Meranti and Luan to name a couple. These are not even hardwoods at all, they are tropical cedars - so a softwood.

So if you do want to play around with Mahogany for a gun stock, I would suggest that you find out the exact "species" of the mahogany being sold and if it doesn't belong to the Swietenia family, maybe pass it up - unless you have some trim work to do around the house or are looking for a second wood to use to accent black walnut on a more modern stock (makes nice forend tips and pistol grip caps).

 

[Zonie]

... He says he can cut to get flame or tiger stripe which I know to be possible having owned furniture with that quality of veneer.

Just a thought about these figured woods.

The curl or "tiger stripe" and flame patterns are not created by the way the wood is sawed.

It is caused by the unique form of the woods grain.

Most wood is made of small, linear grains which travel straight from one end of the board to the other.

The curly wood has a grain that bends back and forth along the length of the board.
It looks a bit like this sketch.



Notice, where these grain waves meet the surface of the board, they create a stripe or some other form of a pattern.
Being essentially an exposed end grain, they accept the stain much more readily than the area where the grain is parallel with the surface of the wood.

That makes the stripes much darker looking than the adjacent area.

These stripes or other patterns have another unique characteristics.

Because the direction of the grain effects the way light reflects from it, real natural curly wood appears to change depending on the direction the light reflects off of it.

If the light source moves, the stripes will appear to disappear in one area and appear in other areas. They also have an iridescent look that can't be duplicated by man.

 

[Gustavo Hoefs]

Thanks Guys Tenngun and Zonie, Talking about guns from places other than Europe is what has been on my mind. Ive been looking around on the internet for what was going on in South America and the caribbean. I suppose /assume the muskets were all imported ? but maybe not. Restocking, repairing making new parts? I would think there would have been some type of industry that developed in the southern continent a couple of hundred years ago the way it did in North America, months or years of waiting for imports to arrive would not be an efficient method of survival. I am wondering does anyone on the forum have an example of an original antique gun with mixed parts

 

[Gustavo Hoefs]

Thanks Galamb - according to the chart on wikipedia I would be better off loking for a piece of rosewood I think some of that turns up in south Florida occasionally


ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janka_hardness_test

 

[smoothshooter]

Be sure you have an understanding of the woodworking characteristics of whatever type of mahogany you are considering using, particularly as related to inletting and shaping.

I was talking to a longtime employee of a local custom and semi-custom recurve bow manufacturer several years ago, and he mentioned that they had committed to making some bows made primarily of mahogany a couple of years prior, and that they would never make that mistake again. The material was much more difficult to work with than they had anticipated, and they thoroughly regretted ever starting the project.
He did not say what kind of mahogany it was, but I believe he said they special-ordered it from somewhere in Africa.

The British built some warships out some sort of mahogany in the early to mid 1800's in an effort to have some ships that would be less susceptible to worm damage and rot over time, but had to discontinue the practice. It was discovered that in combat, the mahogany splinters that were sent flying when an enemy cannon ball blasted through the ship's structure caused many more casualties than the woods like oak, pine, etc., that were normally used because mahogany splintered so much more badly.

IIRC, another problem was that there was some sort of oil in the wood fibers that made wounds caused by the splinters to be much more painful and more likely to get infected than other woods.

I know you are not contemplating building a bow or sailing ship, but the point I am trying to make is that mahogany apparently has some unique characteristics that are substantially different than woods more commonly used for gunstocks that you will want to research before using.

 

[tenngun]

In woh-ta-yah and the Taos trail Garrard reports on of the traders carriered a gun restocked by a carpenter in the Great Lakes area. 'Indian gun smiths' were compleatly restocking guns in most of the villages in the east. Ships 'gunners' and carpenters often had to restock guns at sea . Lots of Arab and East Indian guns made in local styles had lots of European gun parts. The very first origanal Brown Bess lock I ever saw first hand was on a North African rifle inlaid with ivory and mother of peral. The first Indian gun I ever saw had a 16th century 5 sided barrel set in a sliver stock. Henry 8 had one with the same barrel. The point of the pentagon made the 'sight'. It had a snap haunch lock.

 

[tenngun]

In woh-ta-yah and the Taos trail Garrard reports on of the traders carriered a gun restocked by a carpenter in the Great Lakes area. 'Indian gun smiths' were compleatly restocking guns in most of the villages in the east. Ships 'gunners' and carpenters often had to restock guns at sea . Lots of Arab and East Indian guns made in local styles had lots of European gun parts. The very first origanal Brown Bess lock I ever saw first hand was on a North African rifle inlaid with ivory and mother of peral. The first Indian gun I ever saw had a 16th century 5 sided barrel set in a sliver stock. Henry 8 had one with the same barrel. The point of the pentagon made the 'sight'. It had a snap haunch lock.

 

[Gustavo Hoefs]

Thanks And I see what you are saying about splintering and the other characteristics of mahogany, in the case of a gun stock recoil could cause failure at the breech plug area and around the tang. I suppose caliber size would be a consideration, stocking a .75 caliber barrel or stocking a .32 caliber barrel one would produce more recoil than the other.

 

[Gustavo Hoefs]

Now you got me going ...... I have not paid too much attention to the talk about the low priced re-enactor guns so now I will have to look to see what type of wood those India and Pakistan repro`s are being stocked with

 

[varsity07840]

If I remember correctly, back in the 70's, Remington used mahogany for their Light 20 model 1100s. Possibly Honduras as it was readily available at that time. From a production standpoint I'd be curious about their finishing process that avoided the blush that you can get after sanding.

 

[galamb]

Thanks Galamb - according to the chart on wikipedia I would be better off loking for a piece of rosewood I think some of that turns up in south Florida occasionally


ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janka_hardness_test

Rosewood is probably very usable but might cost you an arm and two legs for a suitable piece.

I have a custom recurve bow that has a Cocobolo (rosewood) riser (stands up to the flexing and stress very well - bow pulls 51 lbs and have been shooting it for years).

But at $55 a board foot (I pay $9/BF for curly maple) that would run a little over 600 bucks, just for the board. Even the Indonesian stuff runs about 30-35 bucks a board foot and is nowhere near as "pretty".

Would look awesome, but would be an uber-expensive stock :grin:

 

[smoothshooter]

I doubt if splintering from recoil would be an issue.
I was thinking more along the lines of you removing material with a chisel or router and without warning a huge piece splinters off at an angle, and possibly causing the sound of potty-mouth words to reverberate for many yards in all directions from your shop.

 

[Gustavo Hoefs]

HA ! That happens to me with little splinters on maple ..... right when im soooooo close to the perfect fit !

 

[Col. Batguano]

You can spend real money for pretty wood though. Some "gunstock" blanks in Walnut will run you $4000. You can spend $2000 for a maple one with Dunlaps. Compared to that, a $600 rosewood stock sounds like a bargain. Rosewood is pretty heavy wood though.

Following weights per cubic foot of dried wood;
Cherry............36 lbs/cu ft
Walnut............38 lbs/cu ft
Red Maple.........39 lbs/cu ft
White Ash.........41 lbs/cu ft
Sugar Maple.......45 lbs/cu ft
Bolivian Rosewood.53 lbs/cu ft
Honduran Rosewood.64 lbs/cu ft
Amazon Rosewood...68 lbs/cu ft

Here's the link http://www.bellforestproducts.com/info/popups/average-dry-weight/?s=6

Generally for a field gun, I'm looking for places to take weight away from my builds rather than adding it.

 

[Gustavo Hoefs]

Hey thats really great set of statistics on weight of woods. When I asked the question about mahogany I was bored with the idea of one of three choices maple, walnut or cherry for my next build. What I am really going to try is Australian Pine but I didnt think any one would be familiar with that stuff. I got the idea after reading about either Buchele or Shumway chain sawing tree limbs to make gun stocks. The guy in Riviera Beach with the saw mill has connections with tree removal people all over town that is where I am going to find the exotic woods. I kind of hope to get a bit lower price and wait for it to stabilize after he kiln dries the slab