Cuban mahogany

[GGJaguar]

Cuban mahogany was discussed with regard to an Orpheum 12-fret dreadnaught in this thread, and a Martin Custom Shop 12-fret D-18 with Cuban mahogany just popped up at Wildwood Guitars. Nice looking wood! Martin had been using sinker Honduran mahogany for the past few years but maybe they've run out of that and are looking at other unique mahoganies to use like Cuban.

 

[chazmo]

Quite beautiful! Yeah, still not sure if that Orpheum is Cuban or whatever, but I like the "streaky" look of the Cuban figure.

 

[spoox]

We used to import a lot of 19th. Century mahogany furniture from England and the majority of the pre and early Victorian pieces were Cuban mahogany.
A lot would have the larger panels veneered in crotch grain. Unfortunately in Southern California in the '70s oak was basically the only wood people were
interested in, so eventually when I would go to London I would only buy something in mahogany if it was so unusual or so cheap I felt I might be able to sell it. While some pieces were still made out of Cuban in the late 19th Century a lot of the mahogany used seemed to be some lighter straight
grained variety. I never saw much of the "ribbon" African mahogany used in England that one would see in many American pieces of the teens and twenties.

 

[chazmo]

Interesting, spoox. That's surprising to me. I've always thought mahogany was considered a premium wood for furniture of all types. Oak is great, but has always been (I though) a cheap alternative to mahogany and cherry.... Anyway, I didn't know that 19th c. English furniture used a lot of Cuban!

 

[AcornHouse]

Interesting, spoox. That's surprising to me. I've always thought mahogany was considered a premium wood for furniture of all types. Oak is great, but has always been (I though) a cheap alternative to mahogany and cherry.... Anyway, I didn't know that 19th c. English furniture used a lot of Cuban!

And that’s the reason why Cuban mahogany became so scarce. It got harvested out for furniture in the years following the exploitation of the new world. The Arts & Crafts movement went to oak because it was plentiful. In Cali, with all the A&C bungalows, it was a perfect match. What was unusual were Greene & Greene houses. (If you don’t know who they were check out this.) They did most of their furniture and interior designs in mahogany in California, although I don’t know if it was Cuban and Honduran. (And while they are coming out of the Arts & Crafts movement, they have some Art Nouveau in it.

 

[AcornHouse]

And for a run down of the various mahoganies (some of which aren’t really) and their history, check this out. https://www.finewoodworking.com/2009/09/01/making-sense-of-mahogany

 

[GGJaguar]

I know Martin would use sapele and sipo interchangeably with Honduran mahogany on the 15-series guitars. My Martin D-15SM is Honduran.

 

[merlin6666]

This I probably the standard article on mahogany:

Mahogany Mixups: the Lowdown | The Wood Database

www.wood-database.com

I think Cuban may be heavier and darker than Honduran. So the Honduran and others often get stained to look more like Cuban.

 

[spoox]

In California in the late '60s until the late '80s American oak was the main thing people wanted--the ornate Grand Rapids factory stuff.
The Mission and Craftsman furniture you couldn't give away until the late '80s. And it was initially difficult to sell better made English
oak furniture. If customers even knew mahogany, walnut or rosewood furniture existed I would ask them what part of the east of the Mississippi U.S. they hailed from. We sold a lot of French and Austrian pieces too, which was a nice change from the oak. Walnut was always my favorite, and our house is full of pieces that never sold in the shop. I would tell Vicki "Well, as long as we have to look at it every day, we may as well look at it in home..."