Mahogany (Honduran)

Family

Wood

Category

wood

Species

Swietenia macrophylla

Density

0.55 g/cm³ · 550 kg/m³

Species measured

True mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla)

Specific gravity

0.45

Janka side hardness

800 lbf · 3,559 N

Modulus of rupture

11,500 psi · 79.3 MPa

Modulus of elasticity

1.5 ×10⁶ psi · 10.34 GPa

The USDA table lists this separately from African mahogany (Khaya spp.), which is softer at 830 lbf.

Source: USDA Forest Service, Wood Handbook — Wood as an Engineering Material (FPL-GTR-190, 2010), Table 5–5b, for clear straight-grained specimens at 12% moisture content. The grey figures are converted at 1 lbf = 4.448 N, 1 psi = 6.895 kPa and 1 GPa = 145,038 psi; the inch-pound numbers are the published ones. Specific gravity is oven-dry mass over volume at 12% moisture content, so it sits about 12% below the working density at the top of this page (0.45 × 1.12 ≈ 0.50 g/cm³). The two come from different sampling programmes, so a few species differ by more than that.

Origin

Central America and the Caribbean

Appearance

Deep reddish-brown, fine and even texture, straight to ribbon grain

Working

One of the easiest hardwoods to work: machines cleanly, glues well and takes a high polish.

Unlike the USDA figures above, these lines are not measurements: they carry no units and no single source. They describe how the timber is generally found to behave rather than what it is guaranteed to do — read them as the consensus of the trade, not as a specification.

• Density is for air-dried stock at about 12% moisture content
• Dimensionally very stable — a large part of its reputation
• Many species are sold as mahogany; properties differ noticeably

Dressed sizes are the same for every species — a 2x4 is 1-1/2 x 3-1/2 in in oak as much as in spruce. What changes is the weight, and that is derived here from mahogany (honduran)'s density of 0.55 g/cm³.

Which tools work a material is a property of the family (Wood), not of the individual species — so this list is the same on every wood page, and changes when the tool data changes rather than when this paragraph does.