MAHOGANY CONSOLE TABLE
This mahogany console table is massive that a client wanted exactly as it is.
This project would have been a lot easier with Spruce, Fir, or Pine – a softwood. But with hardwood, boy, they are a pain to do. Moving these kinds of timbers and fitting them snug on mitered cuts and mortises is like, as the song goes, trying to “Move a man who can’t be moved.”
No. I am not talking of a dead man in an advanced state of rigor mortis. I refer to the sheer weight of the timber. They aren’t easy to clamp to overcome a twist, bow, or any of its inherent imperfections. To make them right, one has to mill them to exact precision. A millimeter off will magnify that error four times when one gets through to all four corners. I don’t just pluck these numbers from thin air; I had this experience.
Three days ago, I tried my hand on Mahogany lumber for a console table. It is an easy build: there are no mitered cuts, mortise-and-tenon joints, or any of that carpentry mumbo-jumbo. The project only involves straight cuts, four-inch screws, and glue. And, with a design that looks like putting in the missing parts of a big wooden box, how can I go wrong. I was wrong. I was dead wrong.
Yet, despite these hurdles, fine artisans and beginning woodworkers alike still take on that challenge. Why?
Hardwoods are simply beautiful, not garish, just elegant—their grains flow. In the case of mahogany, they have a nuanced shade of bronze and reddish grains – a color that no wood stain can replicate. And Philippine mahogany? Wow! They are there for the whole damn world to see.
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DOUGLAS REY B. BERIDO
drberido@yahoo.com | Kagudoy Road, Basak, Lapu Lapu City, Cebu, The Philippines