Western vs Eastern Maple, soft or hard??
geppetto425
| Posted in Wood and Materials on
Is all maple from the Northwest Big Leaf maple??? And if it is, this is considered soft maple correct?? But on the other hand soft maple can have more character, color and is more stable than Eastern Hard Maple correct?? Do Northwest woodworkers use it or do they consider it an inferior wood?
I just bought about 1000 board feet from a landowner and I’m trying to confirm what I bought!!
Thanks for helping me out with my limited knowledge about species.
Replies
Hi Geppetto ,
I'm South of you about 350 miles in Oregon and to my knowledge it is Big Leaf Maple trees that grow down here , and the wood is softer than hard Maple for sure .
You are correct in so much as Eastern Soft Maple can have a wide range of color and figure and grain , I get Curly , and the most beautiful Birdseye in a darkish color that looks to me like the speckles on the side of a Brown Trout .
In the PNW we call it Western Maple , it had been highly under utilized in general but is a usable and often times figured and nicely grained wood .
I would not say soft is more stable then hard Maple , if the stock is dried properly is what will determine the stability not the Specie .
To answer your question do we think it an inferior wood ,,,,,,,,compared to what ?
In all honesty I knew a guy that made children's bedroom furniture out of like 8/4 and 6/4 Western Maple it was like butcher block solid slabs the grain was more lively then the typical hard Maple .
A few months back I looked at a small unit of Western Maple for a paint grade job and it was snakey and crooked and not flat and relaxed , I passed for that particular job .
Your challenge will be to handle and dry the wood properly , even if you pay a kiln my guess the difference if you air dry will make up in less yeild with more air dry waste warp and twist .
good luck dusty
Your challenge will be to handle and dry the wood properly .......
He also may need to abrasive sand it down to final thickness. We get a good bit of this in from a local supplier and it is branded as "pacific coast" maple. Beautiful, but the little random curls/quilts fuzz up even in a shelix-head planer.
Lee
Hi Lee ,
How does it machine ?
Yup , sanding will produce fewer milling defects and would be the way to go .
Did your ww adventure go well ?
dusty
Hey Dust,
These guys cringe when they get an order for doors because it tends to tear out badly on a panel raise. Maybe splinter would be a better term. In other words, a big chunk will usually rip out on the edge of about 1/4 to 1/3 of the doors. As for the fuzzing, that's not much of a problem with the 43" Timesaver widebelt sander. The profile on the panel raise has to be sanded by hand. I also know if the board stalls or hesitates for just a second in the planer that it gets a nasty burned stripe across the face.
Now that I think of it, the stuff we usually get has a pinkish cast to it - and actually it's real similar to the look of alder (but less expensive). The trade off is the difficulty to work.
Lee
P.S. WW adventure update in the big LN thread - I'll post a few pics this evening. Talk to you soon.....
In addition to Dusty's excellent feed-back I'll add that Big Leaf Maple is also sometimes referred to as Brown Maple because it's browner than the Eastern Hard Maple.
There are some Eastern Maples that are quite a bit softer than Western Maple but are still whiter, like their much harder Eastern cousins. A few years ago I refinished some Maple stools for a bank. The stools were made in Quebec and were labeled as being made of Maple. The wood looked like Maple alright but was amazingly softer than I'd ever experienced. It was denser than Alder but not any harder. Perhaps it's a Northeastern species. I really don't know. All I can tell you is that it was definitely whiter and much softer than Big Leaf Maple.
Kevin ,
I've bought and used what was called Brown Maple and Silver Maple , these were Eastern woods kd and used for paint grade and utility work because of the color variation as well as being sold as species , Soft Maple .
Sounds like you may have had some Soft or could it have been Poplar ?
Most of the Western I've used ( not a lot ) was harder then Alder but a similar color but more beautiful grain .
dusty
I think we're talking about the same things just using different words. I've worked with lots of Big Leaf Maple and am familiar with it. Whatever the stools were made of was definitely whiter and a whole lot softer than BL Maple. The stools had been purchased new and shipped to where I worked because the bank wanted a custom color applied. Which is why I had access to what the original manufactorer labeled the wood as - Maple - as well as where they were manufactored at - Quebec.
I've also worked (reluctantly) with a fair amount of Poplar and feel reasonably confident that I know Poplar when I'm looking at it. This stuff wasn't Poplar IMHO. Nor Alder, which I've worked with more often than either BL Maple or Poplar, way back in my furniture factory & shutter factory days here in Oregon - 1980s.
My assumption at the time was that it might have been some species of Maple native to Quebec but not necessarily further South where we're more used to our "Eastern" Maple coming from. But as I say, it was just an assumption. I've not seen it's like before or since so it remains a bit of a mystery if the original manufactorer's labeling was incorrect.
As for brown Maple. I've not seen any supplier lable BL Maple that way. It's more of a slang term that I've heard cabinet makers use here in the Portland Metro area to differentiate it from Eastern Hard Maple. And that in reference to solid stock, not veneered ply.
Edited 9/28/2008 6:48 pm by Kevin
Maybe this may help?
http://www.nwplants.com/plants/trees/ace_mac_index.html
or Mapel is hard whatever it is!
If it's not Sugar Maple, it's soft.
Thanks for all the replies about the soft maple. I agree that it is an underutilized wood and not that much softer than Eastern hard maple (silver).As to Olddusty's response:
"I would not say soft is more stable then hard Maple, if the stock is dried properly that is what will determine the stability, not the Species."If this is true then there is no difference in expansion and contraction between a Balsa Wood and a Purple Heart chair? It was my understanding that different species have different rates of expansion and contraction! Please correct me if I'm wrong!Thanks
Sure wish Maple of any 'type' was cheeper that the poplar I can get. Not sure why but Chicago area so I have to put up with it...
Maple is EXPENSIVE HERE!
Kettle Moraine Hardwoods, just off the freeway a little past Racine,WI
Select & Better Hard Maple, 4/4 is currently $2.25 a board foot. I used to work there and folks from Chicago would drive up all the time, it's worth the trip!http://www.kmhardwoods.com/
geppetto ,
The expansion and contraction properties of woods varies with and within each species somewhat , you asked about stability not expansion properties . The expected expansion rates of each wood is a normal and seasonal type of movement after a piece is dry and built the movement can be predicted by specie .
Once a given specie is properly KD, it may travel by rail through moist and humid temperatures , and the MC may be higher by the time you get it .You may need to let it acclimate and reach a stable RH factor Now when the wood is dry and stable , when we glue up a 22" wide panel it can move perhaps a 1/2 " depending on the specie , but we would still call that stable .
hope that helps
regards dusty
And if a particular species has a lower expansion and contraction rate than another, then it is more stable than that other species.... That is what I meant.
That certainly is one way to look at it , when I think of unstable wood I picture cupping warping and twisting and splitting as though there is an internal war going on in some boards .
Wood moves and will move , we can design with that in mind but we cannot stop the movement . Wood pieces that experience seasonal movements are truly being affected by the ambient climate seasonally but would not necessarily be considered un stable .
While it is true some species move less than others they all move , so if stability is based on whether a board moves or not , few woods could be considered stable .
dusty
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