African Mahogany price per board foot
Plan on about $8.95 a board foot for 4/4 stock at U.S. retail (our 2026-08 estimate — your yard gets the final word). A typical board, 6″ wide and 8′ long, will run you around $35.80.
For two hundred years, 'mahogany' meant the throne of furniture woods — Chippendale carved it, ship captains grew rich on it, and the great Cuban and Honduran forests emptied into drawing rooms. When international protections finally closed that chapter, African khaya stepped into the role: the same wide, calm boards, the same ribbon-stripe shimmer, at prices a hobbyist can actually pay. You're buying the modern edition of the most storied furniture wood on earth.
Wide, stable boards with classic ribbon figure. Interlocked grain can tear out — light cuts and sharp cutters. The genuine-mahogany stand-in.
African Mahogany at a glance
| Price per board foot | $8.95 (2026-08) |
| Weight, dry | 34 lb/ft³ · 2.8 lb per BF |
| Janka hardness | 850 lbf |
| Shrinkage, green → oven-dry | 5.7% tangential · 3.4% radial |
| Cost of 10 BF | $89.50 |
| Cost of 25 BF | $223.75 |
What common thicknesses cost
Same 6″ × 8′ board, priced by rough thickness (thicker stock often carries a small premium on top of this — figured on volume alone):
| Thickness | Board feet | Cost | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4/4 | 4.0 | $35.80 | 11 lb |
| 6/4 | 6.0 | $53.70 | 17 lb |
| 8/4 | 8.0 | $71.60 | 23 lb |
| 12/4 | 12.0 | $107.40 | 34 lb |
Will it stay flat?
The mahogany family's calling card is peace of mind: wide boards that stay flat. It's why boatbuilders, doormakers, and patternmakers never really left the family.
The measured numbers: drying from green, african mahogany shrinks about 5.7% across a flatsawn board's width (tangential) and 3.4% across quartersawn (radial) — that ratio is why the two cuts behave so differently in your house.
Buying african mahogany without regrets
Expect widths and lengths that domestic hardwoods stopped offering decades ago. One quirk: density swings noticeably board to board, so heft them — the light ones machine like a dream and dent a little sooner; the heavy ones, the reverse.
At the finishing bench
That ribbon figure comes from interlocked grain, and interlocked grain tears out — light cuts, fresh edges, and a sander for the final say. Fill the pores and build a rubbed film finish, and you get the deep old-library glow the wood is famous for.
Sources & further reading
Plan a african mahogany project
Prices vary with region, grade, width, and figure. Cheaper neighbor: Sapele ($8.25). A step up: Black Walnut ($9.50).