I made some 1/8 inch Mahogany ornaments, themed after my coasters - by request. I really like the richness and grain of the wood. Engraved with full at 1000, and cut at 220 with two passes (on the Plus). Sealed with a spray lacquer. I am quite happy with how they turned out. Figured I would share my settings because I couldn’t find any other topics on Mahogany.
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Mahogany is actually several different species all sold as Mahogany, All that I have are particularly prone to burning. First while the cut is being made the smoke becomes flame, and worse if a coal gets started it can consume the whole piece by the time you can put it out. The mahogany I have, I have found found to be worse than any other wood I have tried in that regard.
I have found that if you get the wood wet it restrains the laser little but it can keep the smoke from bursting into flame and put a stop to any migrating coals, however the cutting drys that area and so I find that I am running multiple cuts but wetting down the cut between each pass. This has to be done as evenly as possible as less water will cut deeper so the cut will be through in some places and much less in others.
See also Engrave and Cut 1/4" Mahogany tips?
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Good info! I have a really good local supplier - Kencraft- and everything I have bought so far has been very consistent.
After reading your post about 1/4 inch and comment I can believe that it would be very challenging cutting that thickness. I noticed a tiny flame cutting this 1/8” but it wasn’t bad, and was barely noticeable. I had to do 3 passes on 1/4” hickory the other day and there were a few spots that got a little flare up, but nothing too concerning. Even so I always keep an eye on it to be safe. I may have to try wetting it down in the future if I go thicker.
As I experiment with these hardwoods I’m really enjoying the results! It’s definitely some trial and error. I have a board of “blood wood” that looks really dense that I want to try also, but it’s currently a little intimidating. 
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I had a larger piece of bloodwood years ago and had it show a deeper relation than expected. Freshly cut it was a red as new blood but over not very much time became the brown color of old blood.
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Good to know! I will have to experiment with it as well.
By the way out of curiousity I looked at the web page from the place I bought it from. Looks like it is a “Sapele” Mahogany, so maybe that’s why it was a little easier to cut.
Very interesting! I really had no idea how many different types there were. Thanks for sharing!
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Hey @techyg, love the ornaments you made, they look great. I just got my hands on a big piece of Mahogany that my boss gave me to make a trophy out of lol. Thanks for posting your settings, as it will give me a better starting place to know what to use. Also, I’m sad that I live so far from Kencraft…I’m about 4 1/2 hours south lol
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Also, the piece I have is little over 1.5" thick. All I’m going to be doing is some engraving. Do you think that 1000 speed and full power will be enough for just a single pass engrave? Probably only going to do like 170lpi, it’s just a simple solid color logo
I think that should be fine. If you need it to be a deeper engrave you can always run it again. The thickness of the wood really shouldn’t affect the engrave. With wood that thick you will probably have to remove the crumb tray, and prop it up on something. There are some good instructions here on how to do that.
Oh yeah, I’ve already had to remove the tray on a few different projects at this point. Auto focus is a giant lifesaver
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