Furniture made up of Teak and Mahogany is found around the world. When it comes to crafting new wooden furniture the price, quality, durability, and type of wood are required to be considered.
Both types of wood trees are subtle in texture and shades. The two kinds of wood vary in some instances and have different characteristics.
Teak vs Mahogany
The difference between Teak and Mahogany is that Teak is very strong hardwood extracted from the deciduous tree of the Verbenaceae family and Mahogany is a red-hue tree for making Hardwood that is extracted from the Meliaceae family plant. Teak is a quite expensive kind of tree for making durable plywood and Mahogany belongs to three species-genus Swietenia with African and American categories.
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The term Teak is a name for a tree used for making hardwood items. Teak is prominent for its golden brown luster and decorative grains. The native species of this tree belong to India, Thailand, and Myanmar.
It is considered a valuable tree in terms of the high market price due to the presence of natural oil in it.
The term Mahogany refers to the Tree used for making light and fancy wooden items. It is well-known for its fine grain appearance and quality. Major musical instruments like flute, guitar, harmonium are made using it.
There are 3 categories of Mahogany trees namely bigleaf mahogany, Honduras mahogany, and American Mahagony.
Comparison Table
| Parameters of Comparison | Teak | Mahogany |
|---|---|---|
| Thickness | The teak is quite thick and hard. | Mahogany is comparatively less hard and thick. |
| Scientific name | In Botany, Teak is known as Tectona Grandis. | In Botany, Mahogany is known as Swietenia Macrophylla. |
| Leaves Durability. | The leaves of the Teak plant are very hard to decompose and more durable. | On the other hand, The leaves of the Mahogany Plant are easily degradable |
| Natural Colour | The Teak plant is usually found in Yellow or Dark brown color. | The Mahogany plant is reddish-brown. |
| Uses | The objective of Teak is to make shipbuilding, flooring, plywood | Mahogany is used for making Boats, decorative items, and musical instruments. |
What is Teak?
Teak is easy to maintain wooden plywood used in making wooden structures and items. It usually opts for outdoor wooden items since it is very durable and high in quality.
For carpenter workability, it is hard for designing and making but the crafted items are long-lasting. The fragrance extracted from teak is Laeathry pungent and not bearable.
In terms of sustainability, it is tough for the decomposing process.
For making wooden stairs and railing to handle heavyweights, in those cases, Teak plywood is a very good option. The texture of teak wood is oily. It is a decay-resistance wood for furniture and walls.
A huge amount of Teak harvesting takes place in America, South Africa, and Asia. Burmese teak is one of the species of teak extracted from naturally grown trees. It falls under the category of royal and exotic wood plywood.
Trimming and molding is very crucial task in the case of teakwood. The very unique feature of Teak is moisture resistance which makes it more effective in the rainy season for wood houses.
It has up to 800 years of life expectancy for its solid nature. For the durable characteristics of Teak, water boats and boathouses are generally preferred from Teak plywood.
What is Mahogany?
Mahogany is prominent for the curved texture that makes it the first choice for the designer and fancy wooden articles. Mahogany plywood demands a lot of maintenance by sanding and staining.
It is usually a high demand for beautiful engraved furniture. Due to its less resistant capacity, it is preferable for indoor wooden items.
Though it is less valuable than other plywood the maintenance cost is quite high to regain its original color in long term.
It is termed tropical wood for its growing dark color. The interior design of houses is done using Mahogany wood. The original color of Mahogany fades by the time. It consists loosely defined structure.
It has fewer amounts of natural oil and low elasticity therefore it has to face the disadvantages of bad weather conditions. The life expectancy of Mahogany is almost half of Teak’s life.
Mahogany is physically attractive for deep designing and architecture for a sooting look. It is high in demand in the areas where there is less or no supply of Teak.
Working with Mahogany is quite easy as no hard work is required to give it a shape because of its loose molecular structure. It uptakes stain very well.
Main Differences Between Teak and Mahogany
- Branches: In Teak Tree, there are many branches whereas, in Mahogany Tree, there are fewer branches.
- Properties: Teak is nicely curved, durable, heavy, and strong on the contrary, Mahogany is having a Pore structure, Poor annual rings, and is less strong than teak.
- Appearances: Teak displayed as mottled or fiddle back figures along with straight grain in contrast Mahogany is displayed as broken, ribbon, stripes, and blister figure.
- Life-Span: The life expectancy of Teak plywood is almost 80 years whereas The Life expectancy of Mahogany is maximum 40 years.
- Harvesting: Teak is harvested in Southeast Asia and on the other hand Mahogany is Harvested in Southern Mexico to central South America
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10549811.2019.1686029
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21580103.2019.1673220
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Piyush Yadav has spent the past 25 years working as a physicist in the local community. He is a physicist passionate about making science more accessible to our readers. He holds a BSc in Natural Sciences and Post Graduate Diploma in Environmental Science. You can read more about him on his bio page.
