Hard Maple thoughts

[collinb]

1. I like working with harder woods. You can get some nice edges and, seemingly, more consistency to the shape of things.

2. Hard maple is really stable once it's all cured up. But send a slot bit through it and watch those edged chip away. Because it's really tough to see which direction is the right one to go.

2.1 Don't use a commercial filler. It dries too light. It's ugly. Go with the sawdust putty approach for fill. Looks much nicer. And it's cheaper. (Just save your sawdust.)

3. You really should sand down hard woods after going through an electric planer. That washboard pattern can stand out in the right circumstances.

3.1 Hand sanding (elbow grease or electric) works fine. But now I really want a drum sander -- even a  small one. For surface work rather than thicknessing.

(some display case project pics coming next week)

[drzaius]

Maple is quite plain looking, but I really like it. So tough & strong, & attractive in a minimalist  sort of way. It looks good with water born or oil finishes, although BLO does make it a little too yellow.

I've never found a way to fill it that doesn't stand out though, even the sawdust & glue.

[Coop]

Does hard maple look that much better than soft? Why use the hard stuff except where hardness is concerned. I’ve used both on occasions and really never paid much attention to the looks, except for the ts burn marks on the hard stuff. 

[collinb]

41 minutes ago, K Cooper said:

Does hard maple look that much better than soft? Why use the hard stuff except where hardness is concerned. I’ve used both on occasions and really never paid much attention to the looks, except for the ts burn marks on the hard stuff. 

Soft maple is still pretty sturdy. I don't why, perhaps I just chose it on a whim. That's my inexperience. showing.

Got a few o dem burn marks. Sanded or planed most all of them off. The ones that remain are hidden.

Perhaps soft maple next time around. :-)

[Coop]

No, not critiquing by any means. Just wonderingabout the looks. 

[collinb]

9 hours ago, K Cooper said:

No, not critiquing by any means. Just wondering about the looks. 

Understood.

I picked it because it's going to a retail environment and I was thinking that the harder the wood the more durable.

[AceHoleInOne]

I work a lot in maple, really the only difference between the 2 maples is the sapwood color. Hard is more white color, soft is cream/pinkish/beige tinge, ever so slight.  Each, seem to be equally "hard"

 

-Ace- 

[wdwerker]

I use a bunch of maple too. Soft maple, red & silver is 950 to 700  janka, hard (sugar) is 1450. Most clean consistent color soft maple is mostly sapwood. Hard maple and heartwood soft maple appear very similar . If you try to shave end grain and you can tell the difference easily.  Nothing is absolute I have run into some damn hard " soft maple" and some reasonable " hard maple" . Remember loggers aren't exactly botanists. 

I took a lot of botany in college and 2 uncles were botany professors. Without bark and leaves it isn't easy to definitely tell maples apart. One of our members runs this site and close examination of end grain sanded to an extreme is key for him to identity which kind of wood it is. 

http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/

[Coop]

I bought this , 4/4 and planed it down to 1/2” and it is 8.5” wide and it looks like it’s the outside of the log, sold as soft maple. Would this be all sap wood? 

[wdwerker]

Pretty much, but that doesn't mean that it's soft or weak. Plus the transition is often hard to discern. 

[AceHoleInOne]

Yes, all sapwood. Maple heart is definitely noticible and dark. 

 

-Ace-

[curlyoak]

I like figured wood. I know there is some beautiful figured maple of various types. I'm familiar with figured wood but no experience in figured maple. Any working experiences with figured maple?

[wdwerker]

Curly or " tiger " maple is fairly common to have at least some of it in a board. But the boards with heavy curl the whole length definitely cost more.

[AceHoleInOne]

Hard maple the curl is thinner and tighter. Soft maple the curl is thicker and usually not as tight. Both require sharp tools to work it and prone to chip-out. 

 

-Ace-

[gee-dub]

Hard and Soft Maple are my secondary woods of choice.  Generally I am looking for soft maple (in one of its common species) but, if hard maple is cheaper I will go with it.  In my area the two are closely priced and will be a bit more or less than each other depending on the day I am at the yard. 

If it is going to be the primary non-figured wood I go with hard maple.  If I am trying to keep a bright, light color I will top it with a water borne poly/acrylic blend like Minwax's offering. If I am using it as a figured wood I will use either depending on my preference for the piece.  Figured soft maple makes a nice contrasting detail and really pops with shellac or oils.

Figured hard maple has an almost iridescent quality under clear shellac.

Insert heads on jointer and planer solve my tear out woes of days gone by.  I use a steep angle iron in hand planes or go to a scraper plane or card scraper for finishing up the surface prep.

[Coop]

Walnut, cherry and maple are my meat, potatoes and tomatoes. Poplar is my roughage!

[collinb]

11 hours ago, K Cooper said:

Walnut, cherry and maple are my meat, potatoes and tomatoes. Poplar is my roughage!

I found poplar in an interesting place in some finer furniture (branded, though I have forgotten which brand). Because it's soft it apparently makes for a good drawer slide rail.  It was attached to the inner side wall of a drawer and waxed. Seems like a good place for it. Functional rather than aesthetic.

 

[wdwerker]

Curly maple and almost any figured wood skips the planer in my shop except flattening from rough and goes through the drum sander with progressive grits. I've even gone 150-180-220 by being very careful and barely bumping the crank after 2 passes. Pay close attention to keeping the abrasive clean. You can use a sharp card scraper from multiple directions on tricky spots.

Yea, you can use hand planes if you have them razor sharp, use the right ones and you will still get some tearout or chipping somewhere on a long board. Another trick is to slightly dampen the grain with mineral spirits or alcohol and run the board at a slight diagonal through your planer with sharp blades and take very light cuts. 

Commercial veneers are cut with the flitch (slab) treated with moisture, heat & chemicals on ungodly sharp equipment at a diagonal and they still have to sharpen the blade multiple times a day. To the extent that they just rotate a freshly sharpened blade onto the machine and take the one that's only been on the machine for an hour or so back to be re sharpened . Then drying under controlled conditions. Most of the finest logs with figured grain gets turned into veneer. A great deal of the finest logs from the USA get exported to Europe & Asia because they outbid the domestic buyers.