Too bad that a 20" wide slab of mahogany(African here,which is not a true mahogany),is thought to be a great rarity. In 1963,when I started my first year of teaching shop,we were supplied with what were called the "back boards" from cutting off slices of veneer. It was up to 3 feet wide! 20" was nothing special!! We had so much of it,we called it "Monogany" (we coined the word derived from monotonous), out of boredom with it!!It was about the only type of wood we had,if I recall correctly.
Fortunately,one of the 2 wood shops had a 36" Crescent thickness planer to deal with it.
Some of the pieces of 100 year + old mahogany slabs I now have were back boards. The back board was the about 3/4" thick piece of wood that the machine had to grip firmly in order to allow sheets of veneer to be cut from it. These back boards were no longer useful to the veneer mill,and were laid aside to be sold to who ever wanted them. The back side of these boards were left rough hewn with adzes where ever it was cut down. The clamp marks can still be seen on their edges. That's how you can recognize a back board. Still perfectly good wood to use.
BTW,I still have 1/28" thick Japanese Tamo veneer custom cut for the 1959 Cadillac ElDorado interiors if you are trying to restore one of them. Rare as hen's teeth!! Now,veneers are cut so thin (1/40" to 1/128" ),it is a wonder if you don't sand through them!!! Penrod,Jurden and Clark,a big veneer mill on Norfolk was not too far from Old Dominion College when I went there. We thought $2.50 a board foot for 3/4" Brazilian Rosewood back boards was expensive back then!! OH,for a time machine!!! You could buy whole sheets of any kind of veneer,whatever size,for $1.00 each from the left overs bin!! I still have some of those. I hardly ever had more than a few dollars in my pocket,and made guitars for $150.00 at the time,in the Art lab. College cost $500.00 a year. Our Industrial Arts building was a left over WWII barracks. I liked the place,though the concrete floor was cast like an ocean of waves. We had a retired Marine drill instructor for a teacher. His hobby was playing snare drum to John Phillip Sousa marches on records.
One of them had had a 20 MM cannon shell go into his mouth and emerge just below his jaw bone hinge in the back of his mouth. It had blown his whole cheek off. I never knew it till he told me about it. The surgeons cut a slab off of his leg and very skillfully grafted it onto his cheek. There was still a roundish scar where he shell exited,where no hair grew. He had sort of a permanent squint in his right eye. He told me that every morning he was really shaving his leg!! He always left a few days worth of black beard on his face to hide any scars where they sewed it on. I never did notice,like I said. He was a very nice guy,as were all the rest.
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Originally Posted by Dave Haughs
