Hello from paradise where the weather is warm, the water is blue, and the mahogany is free. Yep, that's right- free. Well, free if you know the guy doing the rennovation on a resort and he has no clue about wood conservation and throws away 2x4x36" scraps like I toss out a shaving from a hand plane. (only after carefully considering if I can use them to hide a nail hole or fill a gap) He is giving me enough beautiful mahogany to build Morris' Greenland SOF kayak. The only thing I'm having to buy is the piece for the gunwales, for which we worked a trade. I have the stringer material, masik, keel, stem and hopefully ribs. That's where my question comes in... has anyone used mahogany for ribs? Also I know you can go narrower than Morris' book suggests, but can you go thinner as well? I don't mean by much, but this is some very tight-grained mahogany, and although lightweight it feels very hard like a more dense wood. I'm thinking it may be hard to bend, and also I think it's strength will allow a thinner rib.

Am I making a mistake using mahogany? I remember reading in Aircraft Spruce and Specialty's catalog that mahogany is slightly heavier than spruce, but it has higher strength. This stuff is really dense and tight grained, but when you pick it up it's very light. I'm not afraid of adding a couple of pounds, but I don't want a heavy boat. I was going to use 1"x1/4" ribs, but run them through a sander to thin them out about 1/16". I figure that would make up for the difference in weight, but not sacrifice on strength.

Wood of any kind is expensive here, so this is quite a find for me. If I can use it I can save a lot of money. If not I'll make some really cool paddles!

-Malcolm