Hello Scott,

I live in the Virgin Islands. It's beautiful and I love it, but there are some sacrifices you have to make, such as $7.00 a gallon for milk, and not being able to find wood!!! A few years ago we had a gift from God- Home Depot built a store in St. Thomas. Before that it was all mom and pop hardware stores. They complained of course that the big guy was pushing them out of business, but ya know honestly the little guys were overcharging us for years so fair is fair I guess. Unfortunately since this is the hurricane belt and most homes are concrete, Home Depot doesn't carry a lot of wood. They have the S4S Poplar and Red Oak furniture grade stuff but not the white oak or cedar or other woods that they do in the states. The studs are full of knots. Even the "1A" at another supplier was knotty- just the knots were smaller. Anyway, mahogany here is like pine in the states... well... not exactly. It's still expensive, but you can get it in good lengths and tight grain. No other wood here comes close. They send us the worst stuff because once it gets here what are we going to do... put it on the boat and send it back? I checked with a very reputable company in the states that I won't name because they were at least willing to ship to me, but they wanted $200 for a spar-grade sitka spruce. I don't have the luxury of going to lumber yards and picking out wood. I can order wood and have it shipped, but I have to pay dearly.

Soooo... in the sailing mecca we don't have boat-building lumber. Go figure. I am going to probably go with the mahogany. The lumber yard here is very helpful and I'm going to ask to weigh it side-by-side with pine or fir. I am not sure what mahogany this is- I believe it's from Trinidad or Venezuela. It is very dark and extremely tight grain. It's in huge 4x8 and even larger very long pieces. More like beams than boards, so it's hard to just pick one up and compare by feel. I am going to see if they have some cut-offs that I can compare weights with.

Anyway, thanks for the response. I'll keep everyone updated on what I decide to do and how it comes out. As I was telling Bill, if it comes out too heavy I can always use the frame for decoration- maybe put a glass top on it and make a dinner table!