Came into a stash of very dense wood - mahogany is what I was told. The grain is super, super tight. I tried to rip some of it and boy, my table saw was struggling. The saw is a 1 1/2 horse Jet contractor. Any ideas on how I do this better? Blade choice?
The wood is 2 3/8 by 3 1/2 and 76 inches long. I want to rip them in half and plane them to flat.
Appreciate some pointers.
MJ
I'm no expert but the only thing I can think of is little cuts at a time. Keep raising the blade until you're all the way through.
Describe the problem more, for us.
Was this wood given to you, free wood?
Is it your saw that is weak, as to why it's hard to cut? A sharp blade may help.
Is the wood pinching your saw blade, as you cut? This may be because the wood has been case-hardened, i.e., improperly kiln dried. Some folks give away case hardened wood, because of this/these sort of problems with working it.
Sonny
A dedicated rip blade would be a good place to start... large gullets to remove waste and rip teeth to sever the fibers. Alternatively, perhaps gain access to a bandsaw and buy a suitable resaw blade for it?
As an aside... I never thought of mahogany as being a tight grained wood nor particularly hard to cut. Sounds more like Ipe... ?!?
John
snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:
It might be worth giving your saw a minor tune up. Check the belt tension (too loose or too tight give poor results) and make sure your fence is aligned perfectly.
I wonder if applying a lube (such as wax) to the blade would help. I've done it with Forstner bits and it helps.
Puckdropper
Hard to tell what the bro blue might be, BUT you can over tax the motor if you are going to plane the boards flat after ripping, as possibly indicated by the order of operations that you mentioned. If you are trying yo cut a board that is not flat or straight you are very likely binding the blade in the cut.
And FWIW, mahogany is typically pretty soft compared to oak but then again any rip that is over 2" thick on a non flat or straight board is going to be tough with only 1.5 hp.
Using a combination blade? Don't. Use a 20-30 tooth flat ground blade; a real rip blade. If your saw continues to struggle, set cut depth a bit over half the thickness, rip, flip the board and rip again.
I'm with others, your boards sound like ipe, not mahogany.
Mahogany isn't usually that dense. I'd suspect jatoba is much more likely.
Well, this is more likely that I was using the wrong blade. I had high tooth count blade I was using for plywood. I've got a ripping blade that I will switch over to.
I'm not sure it's ipe, wrong part of the world. Wood came in on a Japanese cargo ship. I suspect jatoba as a possibility.
When cut, it's a nice brown color.
MJ
Can be teak or anything. When living in the south pacific for a few years we would get ships in from South East Asia and the US. The Asian ships would brace the cargo with what I determined to be Mahogany. I got the entire shipload of heavy and wide lumber. We could not handle most of it due to size but we had a warehouse that the big Hyster fork lift machines walked the load in for us to make smaller.
The wood lasted for some years with people building all sorts of items.
Good luck with your load. It might help if you knew where the ship loaded. That is your wood source, not the flag country.
Mart>
As mentioned by others, use a dedicated RIP blade for all ripping. As few teeth as possible. 24 teeth maximum. Also try one of those thin blades.
That explains it. You are feeding the wood wrong.
In Japan, they drive on the left side of the road. Feed the wood from the other side and it will go through the blade much smoother.
Glad I could help.
Martin Eastburn wrote in news:Q0R9x.12561$ snipped-for-privacy@fx19.iad:
Teak is _very_ unlikely. That's been a valuable wood for a long time, I doubt someone would just randomly leave a chunk around (and they certainly wouldn't use it for dunnage).
Real mahogany doesn't grow in the far east, so it wouldn't be that, either. The various trees that are called things like Phillipine Mahogany (lauan, etc) are all rather soft compared to true mahogany, which as mentioned is itself softer than oak, maple, etc.
If the wood was dunnage, there's a whole slew of little known tropical trees it could be.
John
Both ipe & jatoba are from South America. Japanese cargo ships go many places...where did it come from? If SE Asia, maybe its apitong.
I have never thought of mahoganny has a dense wood . Mahoganny is one of the lightest woods on the Janka scale.
Check your blade, get a rip blade. That's some thick wood, and if you are not using a rip blade it will only take a small cut before filling up.
rain is super, super tight. I tried to rip some of it and boy, my table sa w was struggling. The saw is a 1 1/2 horse Jet contractor. Any ideas on how I do this better? Blade choice?
and plane them to flat.
Need some pics. Could be keyaki (zelkova), a common very hard wood in Japan .
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