One of the more popular types of wood that you could use for woodworking and construction projects around your home is mahogany. Mahogany is a truly beautiful type of wood, one that is also fairly strong, and this is true in most regards.
Today, we want to take a closer look at mahogany to figure out how strong it really is. Let’s also figure out if mahogany is a hardwood or softwood, and just how strong it is.
Is Mahogany a Hardwood or a Softwood?
The mahogany tree is a type of deciduous tree that is a part of the angiosperm family. This means that mahogany trees do lose their leaves during the winter months, and it also means that they are flowering trees that go through flowering cycles.
This, therefore, means that mahogany is a type of hardwood, a moderately hard type of hardwood found in North America and many other parts of the world. There are much harder types of wood out there, although also much softer kinds as well.
Mahogany Wood Strength
The strength of mahogany wood, as well as any type of wood out there, is generally measured according to a few specific parameters. The five specific parameters that we are going to examine today include compressive strength, bending strength, stiffness, hardness, and density.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these five factors to see where this wood ranks, both in terms of the different types of mahogany and in relation to other types of wood out there. There are four main types of mahogany that we want to take a look at today. These include Honduran, Cuban, African, and swamp mahogany.
Compressive Strength
Here we have listed the compressive strengths of the most common types of mahogany that can be found in North America:
- Cuban mahogany – 6,280 lbf per square inch (43.3 MPa)
- African mahogany – 6,570 lbf per square inch (45.3 MPa)
- Honduran mahogany – 6,760 lbf per square inch (46.6 MPa)
- Swamp mahogany – 8,540 lbf per square inch (58.9 MPa)
To be clear, the compressive strength, otherwise known as the crushing strength, of wood refers to the load it can take parallel to the grain, or in other words, how much weight a piece of wood can hold before it buckles.
An example of this would be how much a vertical table leg can hold before it breaks. As you can see, out of the most common types, Cuban mahogany has the lowest compressive strength, and swamp mahogany has the highest.
To compare this with other woods, western red cedar has a compressive strength of 4,560 lbf per square inch, with eastern red cedar having a compressive strength of 6,020 lbf per square inch. We compared mahogany with cedar in much more detail in this article.
We then have much weaker types of wood, such as balsa, which comes in at just 1,690 lbf per square inch. There are also much stronger types of wood, such as ebony (read our full comparison), which comes in at a whopping 11,060 lbf per square inch.
Bending Strength
Below, we have listed the average bending strengths of the most common types of mahogany found:
- Cuban mahogany – 10,790 lbf per square inch (74.4 MPa)
- African mahogany – 11,730 lbf per square inch (80.9 MPa)
- Honduran mahogany – 11,710 lbf per square inch (80.9 MPa)
- Swamp mahogany – 17,490 lbf per square inch (120.6 MPa)
For those who don’t know, the bending strength, otherwise known as the modulus of rupture, refers to the amount of weight a piece of wood can take perpendicular to the grain, or for example, how much weight you could hang on a piece of wood that is horizontal before it starts to bend.
We can compare this to other types of wood, such as western red cedar, which has a bending strength of 7,500 lbf per square inch. We could then compare this to much weaker types of wood, such as balsa, which has a bending strength of 2,840 lbf per square inch. Of course, there are also stronger types of wood, such as Gaboon ebony, which features a bending strength of 22,930 lbf per square inch.
Stiffness
Below, we have listed the average stiffness ratings for different types of mahogany:
- Cuban mahogany – 1,351,000 lbf per square inch (9.31 GPa)
- African mahogany – 1,410,000 lbf per square inch (9.72 GPa)
- Honduran mahogany – 1,458,000 lbf per square inch (10.06 GPa)
- Swamp mahogany – 2,047,000 lbf per square inch (14.12 GPa)
The stiffness of wood, also known as the modulus of elasticity, refers to how much a piece of wood will bend when a load is placed perpendicular to the grain. In other words, the amount of weight you could place in the middle of a board before it sags.
As you can see, Cuban mahogany is the least stiff of all four types, with swamp mahogany being the stiffest. If we compare this to other types of wood, balsa can handle only 538,000 lbf per square inch before it starts to bend, whereas something like Gaboon ebony can handle up to 2,449,000 lbf per square inch before it starts to bend.
Hardness
Below, we have listed the Janka hardness ratings for the most common types of mahogany used in woodworking projects:
- Cuban mahogany – 930 lbf
- African mahogany – 850 lbf
- Honduran mahogany – 900 lbf
- Swamp mahogany – 1,250 lbf
We then have the hardness of the wood, which is measured on the Janka hardness scale, and this refers to how hard the surface of the wood is.
In other words, this measures how resistant a piece of wood is to scratching, denting, and physical impacts. As you can see, Honduran mahogany is the softest of the mahogany types, with swamp mahogany being the hardest.
As is clear, mahogany is a fairly hard type of wood. Let’s compare this to some other types of wood, for instance, eastern red cedar, which has a Janka rating of 900 lbf. We then have other types of wood, such as balsa, which comes in at just 67 lbf, Douglas fir coming in at 620 lbf, and Gaboon ebony coming in at a whopping 3,080 lbf. In the grand scheme of things, mahogany is quite hard.
Density
Below we have listed the average density of the four different types of mahogany that we are examining today:
- Cuban mahogany – 37 lbs per cubic foot (600 kg per cubic meter)
- African mahogany – 33.9 lbs per cubic foot (545 kg per cubic meter)
- Honduran mahogany – 36.8 lbs per cubic foot (590 kg per cubic meter)
- Swamp mahogany – 49 lbs per cubic foot (785 kg per cubic meter)
We then have the density of wood, which simply refers to how heavy it is in regards to a specific size, which is generally measured in pounds per cubic foot or kilograms per cubic meter. As you can see, African mahogany is the lightest whereas swamp mahogany is the heaviest and densest.
If we compare this to other types of wood, balsa features an average weight of 9 lbs per cubic foot, Douglas fir weighs 32 lbs per cubic foot, and Gaboon ebony comes in at 60 lbs per cubic foot. In other words, mahogany is a moderately heavy and dense type of wood.
Is Mahogany Strong?
In the grand scheme of things, yes, mahogany is quite strong. Now, in terms of other types of hardwood, particularly things like ironwood, rosewood, and ebony, mahogany is weaker. In fact, mahogany is also weaker than some other common North American hardwoods, such as maple and ash.
However, it is also much harder and stronger than virtually all types of softwood, whether pine, spruce, Douglas fir, or anything in between. Mahogany is a great option for both indoor and outdoor use, and it can certainly be structurally sound.
Although mahogany is generally too good-looking and expensive to be used for structural applications, flooring, and other such purposes, it is certainly strong enough for the task.
Summary
At the end of the day, if you need a really nice-looking type of hardwood that is ideal for a wide variety of applications, then mahogany always makes for a very fine choice. It’s moderately strong for hardwood and much stronger than most types of softwood.