I have some mahogany from Taiwan that my dad had made into crates in 1961 to ship our stuff back when returning from an extended stay there. It’s been in storage since then.
The pieces are 1.125-1.25” thick by 23.25 wide. I have 3 at 62” length and two at 33.75” long. All would need a slight trim.
Trying to imagine what they might be made into, perhaps that I could offload on my kids:)
Replies
It might be helpful to take a picture. What age are the kids? When do you plan to offload it on them?
Second pic is another piece my dad put a coat of epoxy finish on in the late 60’s.
Kids are 27-35 (3 of’m)… Sometime before I die:)
My immediate thought is table tops. Two long ones together as a dining/breakfast table, two short ones as side or end tables, one short one as a coffee table. You could trim them a bit as needed and still use them relatively intact. I personally would avoid using the metal hairpin legs so popular at the moment on live edge tables, but that's just me!
Harvey
I was thinking exactly what JHarvey wrote.
Use the four pieces pretty much as-is for tops. Pick up some new boards that are similar for legs.
Great ideas from JHarveyB and John_2. Tables would make great family heirlooms of father and grandfather.
Luan can sometimes give the appearance of fine mahogany but is often quite soft. Some softer than others. If yours is of a soft variety you might not want to use them as a top for something that gets a great deal of hard use ,such as a coffeetable. Would make great doors or side panels for something. Probably pretty nice to carve as well.
While I can suggest somethings that maybe one could do with something like that I have boards of my own that I've been staring at for years,some for decades waiting for the right thing to do with them! By the way for some reason we don't call it luane anymore it's now usually referred to as meranti. Luane I think now refers mostly to plywood. If you went to the lumberyard and asked "where's the luane ?" they'll point to the plywood shed.
Tables makes sense. I have enough 1x4’s of similar wood scavenged from a 1970-ish kitchen, enough to skirt one table I think. I found one more of the short boards with some splits, might be stock for legs…
Might not consume your whole stash of Luan, but three of these would make nice heirlooms.
(Gary Rogowski FWW #249)
I have some beautiful old vg fir that would be nice for those, also some 1/2” old growth redwood that would be perfect. The luan is so thick and wide I need to preserve that if possible. Thx:)
They used to use that for making crates? Wow, times, they are a changing.
They didn’t necessarily use it for crates but my dad had the great idea to make crates of it as a way of shipping it back along with everything else. Probably also got it past my mom that way - could you imagine explaining why you’re bringing back a crate full of lumber that you’re never going to use? :) He actually had like three crates made - I don’t know what happened to the rest of it…
Luane,or meranti,phillipine mahogany (it's not mahogany)or whatever you want to call it has always been considered a cheap wood. The dark red stuff is actually quite hard and gets softer to light red, to brown into yellow etc. It's very open grained. I guess the trees can get pretty big and most phillipine mahogany you see doesnt seem to have much in the way of knots or blemishes. Apparently it's much more wide ranging than just the Phillipines. It's used extensively in plywood and popular as underlayment for linoleum. Door skins on hollow core flush doors. Paint grade siding( but zero rot resistance), low cost interior moldings. I haven't seen it for years but that really thin gameroom paneling , the stuff with the photograph of wood on the face was backed with phillipine mahogany( luane). The stuff was 2 bucks a sheet! I had occasion to buy that stuff and used it backwards. Pallets from Asia often are made with some version...so yes, its not surprising that it was made into packing crates. Probably still is.
Blanket box? You could make the bottom from cedar if you needed to stretch the wood if you need to.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled