Finding compatible woods for laminating

[Dick Snyder]

I did an earlier post with this question which got no replies. As this group is usually excellent at providing help, I thought my earlier subject line might have been confusing so I will try one more time. If you read the first post and couldn't help and are now reading this one, I apologize for posting twice.

I would like to make a decorative tapestry hanger in the form of a dowel. I have mahogany but I want to make a laminate with a dark wood in the center so that I end up with a mahogany dowel with a dark stripe in it. Can anyone recommend a resource I can use to learn what compatible dark wood I can glue up with mahogany so that the dowel won't split later? I'm not sure if I should be looking at shrinkage characteristics of the two woods and if so, just how close do the shrinkage charteristics of the mahogany and the darker wood have to be to each other?

TIA.

Dick Snyder

[dadiOH]

Use anything and quit worrying about it...nothing is going to happen.

[bridger]

mahogany is an imprecise term. there are a gajillion woods called mahogany, ranging from stuff the color of white pine to stuff as dark as black walnut. since you want a dark stripe in the middle of your mahogany, I'll assume you have one of the lighter varieties. those are generally pretty soft lauan type woods from the asian tropics.

since the center dark stripe is sandwiched by 2 layers of lighter woods, it has balanced forces. this is a pretty forgiving arrangement. you can pretty much use whatever you want or can afford.

the biggest thing you can do to avoid warping after glueup is store the woods together for a couple of weeks before you proceed.

[Dick Snyder]

Thanks for the suggestion. I will buy the dark wood and store in the room in which the end product is to be finally located for a couple of weeks. Dick Snyder

[Dick Snyder]

Screwed up my earlier post - I meant I will store both the dark wood and the mahogany in the room where I plan to have the tapestry hanger (my living room) for a couple of weeks.