milling your own planking

[bluenose2]

Hello Les calling. I have come into a good quantity of old growth mahogany from the fifties. I would like to replace the planking on the Dumas Chris Craft I bought. Also I would like to mill it for some planking and decking on other ship models I have. I have a decent bench top Delta band saw and a very good table saw. Would it be worth the struggle or just purchase new?

[mtaylor]

Hi Les,

It depends on the wood itself, I'd say.  If it's old, brittle, and open grained, you might want to think about replacing it.  Run a couple of slices off and see what it looks like and if you can work with it.

[Jaager]

Were it an actual full size Chris Craft that you would be working on and you had enough, you would be having great good fortune.

 

It is likely to be open pore ( several species are sold as mahogany ) and this makes it look distorted when scaled down.

 

Black Cherry ( depending on the actual tree ) can be very close in color.  You can also dye a light species ( Maple, Yellow Poplar, Basswood ) to the match mahogany.  This would avoid the open pore problem.

 

A bench top band saw - the probability is that it is under powered to do serious resawing. I have a 3/4 hp  Emco 3 wheel and it has a difficult time.  If the wood is in plank form, the table saw may handle it.  Mahogany is not a dense wood, so it would be less work,  I had to flip and make 2 cuts to get 3 inch planks using a 10 inch table saw - it kept tripping the circuit breaker at 3 inch depth.

 

My wish would be a 2 hp 14 inch band saw, but I did not have a 220 v outlet wired in my garage, so I would have to settle for a 1 3/4 hp 110 v,  but given my age, it is not practical as well as no room without a major interior redo.

[grsjax]

If you can get a hollow ground planer blade for your table saw you can cut very thin planks with it.  Finish on the planks should be usable with little or no sanding.