Soft sugar maple?

[Kermit]

A local online advertising site lists a plank of VERY nice looking curly maple for sale. Air dried (but still needing some time), 11"w, 6'l, 2 7/8" thick, s2s. So I emailed a question to find out if it was red or sugar maple. The reply was "soft sugar maple." At the $20 asking price, I think I'll take a drive to look.

SOFT sugar maple? I know it varies from stick to stick, but...

[Robert Wolfe]

"Soft maple" could also be silver maple which is generally very soft.......

[Ky-Flinter]

"Soft maple" could also be silver maple which is generally very soft.......

Right, we call them water maples around here.  I've seen some with great curl.

-Ron

[Clark Badgett]

"Soft maple" could also be silver maple which is generally very soft.......

Right, we call them water maples around here.  I've seen some with great curl.

-Ron

Where I grew up in Kentucky we called 'em silver maples, cause they turned their leaves over when it was about to rain.

[blaksmth]

Out here in Co our silver maple has absolutely no grain and is poor for gun stocks

[Acer Saccharum]

Silver or soft maple can have spectacular grain, but it is usually low in strength. It doesn't take carving well.

[Kermit]

I have one gun with an unnameable ignition system with a red maple stock. Fairly soft. Is silver maple softer yet? I've used a lot of maple for furniture, but never silver maple...

[t.caster]

Ditto what Acer said. If it don't carve well it might be a problem inletting part as well. My woods is full of huge Silver Maple and about every couple years another one falls down. I have tried to salvage a stock or two from it, but even dried it seams worthless for anything but firewood. The tight curl didn't even show when stained
But then at $20, you are not out much, and it might not be silver maple after all. Worth a look see!

[Acer Saccharum]

It's closer to pine in hardness than sugar maple, tho' the figure can be spectacular.

[Stophel]

I've found it soft, and "hairy".  The grain raises BAD and never stops, making it difficult, if not impossible, to finish, no matter what you are trying to use it for.  Curly or not, silver maple is probably best for kindling...

But, if it's not too far a drive for you, it's definitely worth checking out.  The seller probably doesn't know exactly what it is.   

[Dphariss]

I would not bother reading past "soft".

Dan

[Captchee]

 Soft sugar maple is a contradiction in terms. It cannot be both  
Your probably going to have to look at it to know what he has as sugar maple and silver maple are not the same thing . Also most of what we think of as hard maple is in fact not classified as hard maple but soft maple . suger Maple is not a soft maple .
 At one time I worked at a company which made church furniture . Things like  pulpits were made from  what was ordered as sugar  maple. It has little to no figure as  we would call it  and was as white as paper . It was also  so hard that we had to replace the  planner blades  constantly .  Also our big powered time saver  which ran multiple grits of sanding paper  would literally destroy the paper in a couple passes . Also if you try to work it down to fast it will easily scorch and burn the paper up .
 i also spent years in the flooring industry. suger maple is very hard  as is black maple. in some cases you can not even nail through it and have to pre drill  or it will  split or  completely turn a nail and jam up you  floor hammer . they also look alot diffrent then  the softer maples .
 To say the wood was  not hard would be an understatement.
 

 I also buy my planks through a local hard wood dealership
 If you go in and ask for hard maple with figure , they will tell you they have non or that its very  uncommon .  But they will let you dig through it .  They have two  areas . One labeled hard maple and one labeled soft maple  
 Those areas are then broke up into different maples . In the hard maple  area you will find  rock maple /sugar maple  and Black maple . those run in the 9-12.00 bdft . So a plank thats of 12  quarter can run you 450-600 depending on the board , if its plank saw or 1/4 sawn
 Under soft maple they have ,the choice of Big leaf maple , red maple , silver maple and striped maple.
those run from 7.50-9.00 a bdft  so around 250-350 depending again on the board and if it slab or 1/4 sawn

So what im  getting at is the person may be  telling you that the plank he has is one of the classified  soft maple verities  .  most likly silver maple as thats what alot of time people mistake as suger maple .As such you would be best to have some idea of what your looking at when you go look at it

 Here is a link on maple , its hardness and its  classification. Also information on how to tell the differences
http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/differences-between-hard-maple-and-soft-maple/

[Kermit]

Bought it. It is most definitely Western Bigleaf Maple, and some of the nicest curl I've seen in Bigleaf. As Bigleaf goes, it's fairly hard. Sugar it ain't.

I've seen muzzleloaders stocked in WBM that are very nice. If you're not a westcoastie, you likely haven't seen or worked it. As Charles said, it's in the soft category, but can vary. The quilted stuff is uncannily gorgeous. This piece is destined to get resawn, maybe veneer, and used in furniture.

[Captchee]

six ft long ,  probably sawn at 12 quarter  and 11 inchs wide  for 20.00 , DAM good buy

[Kermit]

Yeah, but I had to drive almost TWO HOURS round trip to get it.
 

[David R. Pennington]

I would suppose even "soft" maple is harder than walnut and walnut makes nice stocks.

[Artificer]

As I understand it, the Janka hardness test is the standard of the flooring industry for relative strengths of wood "hardness." 


Species   Pressure To Mar

(Kiln-dried) (in pounds)
Hickory, Pecan 1,820
Hard Maple 1,450
White Oak 1,360
Beech 1,300
Red Oak 1,290
Yellow Birch 1,260
Green Ash 1,200
Black Walnut 1,010
Soft Maple 950
Cherry 950
Hackberry 880
Gum 850
Elm 830
Sycamore 770
Alder 590
Yellow Poplar 540
Cottonwood 430
Basswood 410
Aspen 350
Source: Wood Handbook: Wood as an Engineering Material, USDA, Washington, D.C.

However, I am not sure I completely "buy" this test as from hundreds and hundreds of M14 gun stocks we used and tracked how many shots it took for a gun to "shoot loose" in a stock from compression, black walnut came out MUCH better than Yellow Birch.
Gus

[Captchee]

 the Janka scale isn’t a definitive absolute Artificer. Its basically more of an average as  depending on the tree , you can  any one of them be  harder or softer

[Habu]

Plus a lot of the problems with guns "shooting loose" come from compression of end grain; the Janka test measures compression on the face of the grain. 

[Artificer]

Captchee,

Good point and trees can vary a lot depending on where and how they grow.

Habu,

Interesting point.  On both M1 Garand and M14 stocks, there is compression in the end grain (receiver legs wear, though of course less with the steel liner in the M14 stock) and compression in the face of the grain (trigger housing plate wear).  In both cases, Yellow Birch stocks always wore loose faster than Walnut.
Anyway, I won't bring up modern gun stocks anymore in this thread, but I thought it a worthwhile point on relative hardness of the woods mentioned in this thread.
Gus

[redheart]

If I can dent it easily by pushing my thumbnail into it, I don't want it!

[Captchee]

also  its not just about hardness,  you also want  proper structure characteristics  to the grain as well as reasonable finish weight . That’s just a couple  of the reasons why you don’t often see gun stocks made  from some of the very truly HARD woods . I have however through the years ,made a few pistol stocks from Ebony , Purple hard and Ironwood . But I sure wouldn’t want to make a rifle stock out of any one of them .

  I will confess that I  often do just what redhart said  in that I do a finger nail check . But even that isn’t definitive  when your buying a  board to cut a plank from as the hardness can very down a 10 ft board
 For right or wrong , what I do is  the finger nail test in multiple spots . I look at the engrain , with growth rings close together . I then look at weight . How heavy is it.
 I also take my Moisture detector with me  so as to zap the boards im looking at  in a few different places .  Since its not a probe type meter, I get a quick density reading which I can convert to % of moisture  if I suspect the board may be alittle on the wet side .
 
 The last board I picked up was a plank of 12 quarter  big leaf . While  I wouldn’t say it was extremely hard , it dose carve  and inlet  very nicely . But it also was the heaviest board I could find in the stack .  Since it was a couple hundred cheaper  I bought it and figured Id use it for  some of the CVA restocks I  had waiting to be done .
To date I have cut 5 from that board , two Kentucky stocks and 3  MT rifle stocks . Here  is a photo of one of each .





 here is a shot of the carving prior to  finish oil . this plank didnt carve all that bad  really


so again , and this is just my opinion but it really depends on the individual plank , just as much as it depends on the species 
   

[Rolf]

Captchee, I really like the cheek carving on the last rifle. What school/style is it?

Best regards
Rolf

[Captchee]

John Haga rifle . Lancaster