04-19-2018, 07:57 PM
Just got back from a trip to Panama. I was there once before back when they had the Jungle Warfare school. Wife goes almost every year. We have been married for 16 years, but for some reason, I have never went with her until now.
A little back story: We have a house that her parents currently live in. Wife bought the land and had the house built during her previous marriage. She retained ownership of the house. We also have a farm there close to the canal. The farm was the Wife's grandfather's who took great care of it. He passed long ago, and since no one in the family wants to put any effort or money into fixing it up, my wife has been going through the process of getting it in our names. It has a small house with 2 bedrooms. She recently had an additional section of concrete poured with a new roof overhead for a nice outdoor living space. Problem is that it is more of a jungle now since no one has been taken care of it. There are coconuts, bananas, mangos, gandules, oranges, papaya, avocados, coffee, etc... on the farm, but the jungle is overtaking everything. There are also Africanized bees down where the coffee is grown so I was not able to get down there to see the conditions there. When we retire, we will become snowbirds living down there part of the year.
Wife's grandma just turned 100 to give you an idea of the age of the wood I recovered.
Behind the house was some boards leaning up against a fence. I was looking through them and found a 12" wide x 6' board that looked like mahogany. The story behind the wood is that the grandfather recovered the log from the canal area. He used part of the log for a dugout canoe, and the rest they cut into boards. So I am looking at this board thinking about potentials projects it could be used for. Wife's step dad had no plans for the wood and told me I could have it. I had to cut it down to fit my luggage. It had some nails and they were so rusted, they were not budging so I had to cut down the wood a little to avoid them. I used hand planes to flatten one side, then the tailed planer to finish milling it. Moisture content is 15% from being outdoors, so I will let it sit a while before doing anything more with it. Will take it down a little more one the moisture gets down.
Before
I am not absolutely sure its mahogany, but it sure works like mahogany.
A little back story: We have a house that her parents currently live in. Wife bought the land and had the house built during her previous marriage. She retained ownership of the house. We also have a farm there close to the canal. The farm was the Wife's grandfather's who took great care of it. He passed long ago, and since no one in the family wants to put any effort or money into fixing it up, my wife has been going through the process of getting it in our names. It has a small house with 2 bedrooms. She recently had an additional section of concrete poured with a new roof overhead for a nice outdoor living space. Problem is that it is more of a jungle now since no one has been taken care of it. There are coconuts, bananas, mangos, gandules, oranges, papaya, avocados, coffee, etc... on the farm, but the jungle is overtaking everything. There are also Africanized bees down where the coffee is grown so I was not able to get down there to see the conditions there. When we retire, we will become snowbirds living down there part of the year.
Wife's grandma just turned 100 to give you an idea of the age of the wood I recovered.
Behind the house was some boards leaning up against a fence. I was looking through them and found a 12" wide x 6' board that looked like mahogany. The story behind the wood is that the grandfather recovered the log from the canal area. He used part of the log for a dugout canoe, and the rest they cut into boards. So I am looking at this board thinking about potentials projects it could be used for. Wife's step dad had no plans for the wood and told me I could have it. I had to cut it down to fit my luggage. It had some nails and they were so rusted, they were not budging so I had to cut down the wood a little to avoid them. I used hand planes to flatten one side, then the tailed planer to finish milling it. Moisture content is 15% from being outdoors, so I will let it sit a while before doing anything more with it. Will take it down a little more one the moisture gets down.
Before
I am not absolutely sure its mahogany, but it sure works like mahogany.
