Ken Johnson, age 15, of Missoula, Mont., for his question:
WHY IS MAHOGANY SUCH GOOD WOOD?
Mahogany is often called the finest cabinet wood in the world. The reason for this is that the wood has most of the qualities desired by woodworkers when they are looking for the finest material to make fine furniture.
Mahogany is such good wood because it is strong and hard enough to stand ordinary use as furniture, yet soft enough to be easily sawed, planed and carved. It also has a very good looking grain.
Mahogany does not shrink, swell or warp as much as many other equally hard woods. The wood has an especially attractive color and it also has a very high luster.
The color of mahogany varies from light tan to dark reddish brown. The wood darkens when exposed to daylight.
The wood usually has an interlocking pattern or grain. Sometimes mahogany has curly, wavy, raindrop or speckled figures. When woodmen cut lengthwise through forks in the tree trunk, the wood shows a beautiful and very unusual ostrich plume effect.
Workers often quartersaw or quarterslice mahogany into veneer, or thin sheets. They saw through the center of the log lengthwise so as to divide it into four sections. Then they cut planks alternately from each face of the quarter. The wood usually shows a ribbon or stripe figure when quartersawed.
Furniture manufacturers often glue the mahogany veneer to plain wood to make a beautiful surface finish.
Mahogany is one of the world's heavier woods. The long, clean tree trunk may reach a height of 60 to 80 feet before the first branch appears.
The heaviest and finest mahogany comes from the West Indies, where the Swietenia mahagoni grows to a height of more than 100 feet. This kind of mahogany is very scarce.
Each part of the world where mahogany grows produces its own type. Most mahogany comes from southern Mexico, northern South America and Africa. In Mexico and South America, the wood comes from the Swietenia marophylla tree. In Africa, it is found in trees of the genus Khaya.
Wood from trees of the genus Cedrela looks like mahogany, but it is softer, lighter and more brittle than true mahogany.
The Cathedral of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic was the first building to use mahogany woodwork. The church was completed in 1540.
People believe that Sir Walter Raleigh used mahogany in 1595 to repair his ships in the West Indies.
In the 1700s, Chippendale, Hepplewhite and other manufacturers of fine furniture helped to make mahogany furniture popular.
Popular types of mahogany include African mahogany, Honduras mahogany and Philippine mahogany. Philippine mahogany is actually a trade name for several kinds of hardwood that are not true mahogany.
Forests grow throughout the Philippines. They cover about three fifths of the total land. These forests contain more than 3,000 types of trees that are suitable for lumber, including Philippine mahogany, pine, ebony, cedar, banyan and palm.