Red elm and red maple

[CJC5151]

hey guys. about a year ago I got a nice batch of red elm and red maple. I have never worked with either before but i got it pretty cheap. well really cheap. It wasnt dried enough that was one reason. but now after a year in between stickers its ready to roll. I have just under 100 bf of both all a true 6/4. My question is have you guys worked with either of these. what do you think. what contrasting woods have you used? if you have any pics i would love to see them. as always thanks for your help.

[iSawitFirst]

Red Elm looks a lot like Red Oak. Here's some info on it's characteristics.

Contrasting woods might include Holly, Cherry, Jotaba, Black Walnut, Paduk.

Red Maple looks like, well....Maple. Almost every wood goes with it.

Actually Red Elm and Red Maple might go well together. If more contrast is desired stain the Red Elm or bleach the Maple.

[Parker]

Red Maple is soft maple to lumber yards, hard maple is Sugar Maple. All the red/soft maple I've worked has been kiln dried curly maple. I understand it's much more common for the wood to have a curly figure in soft maple.

[knotscott]

I've used red elm for two projects. The grain is incredible...it contrasts a bit like oak, but has more flow to the patterns...sort of like ash. There's some really cool secondary detail between the primary grains that oak or ash don't have. The wood is not the easiest stuff to work with. It cuts fairly well, but is prone to stiff fuzzing on crosscuts, even with very sharp cutters. It's also a little prone to movement. I'd let it acclimate well in your shop, dimension it a bit oversize and let it acclimate another day or two, then dimension it to final size and it should be fairly stable.

These have a mix of Colonial Maple and Early American stain: