well, it's got pitch pockets, smells like pepper, shreds when it sands, and it's lighter then it looks. what else could it be?
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Identifying Mahogany
- Thread starter eddododo
- Start date
What are the pitch pockets in the photos?
What I’m imagining is like the juicy center of a gusher lol, and I didn’t encounter any of that, but it did do a VERY good job gumming up my tablesaw..
weighing all of the evidence, and I wouldn’t call this conclusive, but I’m pretty sure that you are correct and this is Cedro.. I get why the others think not, and most of the reasons were the same as why I assumed it was mahogany, but the evidence for cedro just sits right with me, it answered all the questions and, however unscientific this part is, it just feels right..
I really hope I can find a service that will identify it more conclusively, but once I found out that a)mahogany doesn’t have any smell worth mentioning, and b) that cedro sometimes indeed comes in quite orange, and c) the pictures of orange cedro look like this wood more than anything else, I’m pretty solidly swayed.. and like I said, looking closely at the grain of Spanish Cedar in person, they look identical!
Ill have to buy a board and actually cut it, I suppose.. if the smell doesn’t match I’m going to lose my mind
Hey @Arie X would you be willing to repost the pics that have pitch pockets? I don't see ones that I recognize as pitch pockets, but you've got way more experience than I do with Cedro . I'm curious what I'm looking at. 
@eddododo I've found that hundred-year-old prices of familiar woods can feel different being worked, and have quite different colour than their more recently harvested counterparts. Smell though... that's often a dead giveaway, even with 200 years between two pieces (eg Douglas Fir)
@eddododo I've found that hundred-year-old prices of familiar woods can feel different being worked, and have quite different colour than their more recently harvested counterparts. Smell though... that's often a dead giveaway, even with 200 years between two pieces (eg Douglas Fir)
I got a little sample of Cedro from woodworkers source... the smell is VERY similar.. though not nearly as pungent. There’s still a bit of mystery, but I’m starting to really be certain that I have a fairly special bit of Cedro... extremely orange, extremely odorous, and seemingly a little harder, perhaps from the age letting it stabilize for so long indoors or something
I've seen forum topics in the past where folks have reported very good results from a USDA lab analysis. Wood can be so variable that it's often only "best guesses" and an actual lab is a good bet if you really want to know.
Yea it’s hard to say why I haven’t done this yet
I DID look at the end grain of a clean cut of the two under a jewelers loop, and they’re remarkably similar, which is not the case with the Known mahogany variants I have.
