The heartwood of Maple is creamy white to a light reddish brown. The sapwood is pale to creamy white. The grain is closed with uniform texture and medium figuring. Occasionally shows quilted, fiddleback, curly or bird’s-eye figuring. Figured boards are often pulled at grading and sold at a premium.

BOTANICAL NAME:

ORIGIN:

North America – Commercial species are concentrated in the eastern United States and Canada, particularly in the mid-Atlantic and Lake states. A cold weather tree favoring a more northerly climate, its average height is 130 feet

COMMON NAMES:

Bird’s-eye Maple, Black Maple, Curly Maple, Hard Maple, Rock Maple, Rough Maple, Sugar Maple, Sweet Maple, Thumbnail Maple

JANKA HARDNESS:

1450 – 12% harder than Northern Red Oak

DIMENSIONAL STABILITY:

Average – Change Coefficient .00353 – 4% more stable than Northern Red Oak.

RELATIVE ABUNDANCE:

Readily available and moderately priced. The higher quality grades of lumber are selected for their white color, although this can limit availability. Figured maple (birds-eye, curly, fiddleback) is generally only available in commercial volumes as veneer – 4 percent of total U.S. hardwoods commercially available.

INTERESTING FACTS:

The Hard Maple is the state tree of Wisconsin, Vermont, New York and West Virginia.

In the North, during the cold nights and warm days of late winter, the Sugar Maple is tapped for its sucrose-containing sap, the source of maple syrup. It may take up to 30 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. A single sugar maple tree produces up to 12 gallons of sap a year. Early American settlers used maple ashes to make soap and Native Americans crafted their spears from Hard Maple.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION:

The heartwood of Maple is creamy white to a light reddish brown. The sapwood is pale to creamy white. The grain is closed with uniform texture and medium figuring. Occasionally shows quilted, fiddleback, curly or bird’s-eye figuring. Figured boards are often pulled at grading and sold at a premium.

COLOR CHANGE:

North American Maple undergoes a medium degree of color change, with slight ambering from a creamy white to a more golden cream color over time.

MAIN USES:

Maple wood is extremely hard and dense and is prized for furniture making and flooring. Maple is the wood used for basketball courts, bowling alleys and dance floors. Maple is additionally used for making baseball bats, pool cues, musical instruments, tool handles, bowling pins, and bobbins to name a few. The sap of the Maple tree is of course used in making syrup

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES:

Maple wood is dense and heavy with excellent shock resistance. Like Black Maple, Sugar Maple is classified as a hardwood while other species of maple are classified as soft. It is the durability of Sugar Maple, along with its uniform texture and resistance to abrasion and wear, that makes it the ideal wood for high traffic areas such as basketball courts and bowling alleys,

WORKING PROPERTIES:

Maple wood is extremely dense and hard. Therefore machining with both power and hand tools can be difficult. There are no known problems with nailing this wood. Extra care must be taken during sanding and finishing, as sanding marks and finish lines are more obvious due to maples density and light color. Maple can be difficult to stain.