Shreckmeister, rest assured you are in good company of those who are driven zombie-like to obtain the illusive hard maple with stock-gracing curl. Were it not for the patience, good-will and pleasant humor of the logging crew I work with, I do not think the quest would be near worth the effort. For every one hundred standing maples I check ( hacking through the bark of standing trees already bought and marked) I average 3-4 with visible curl. I must then decide if any of these tempters are worth hours of digging with pick and shovel around the stump. Then the gnashing and thrashing of chainsawing through the dirt and stone captured in the inclusions below ground level. Then topping and cutting of a 'disk' on the small end, busting it apart and searching for signs of curl to confirm it goes full length. then hauling to the mill and wrestling those obnoxious bell-ends like multi-ton alligators on a machined not engineered for such incoherent dimensions.
Then as the first slabs are exposed, quite often these scoundrels are so ridden with cracks, frost lines, bloated hearts, knots... the list goes on, that they produce few if any marketable stocks... then stacking, grading, laying out, stacking again, cutting out blanks, re-stacking, letting air-dry long enough to render safe for kilning. Then some commit suicide in the kiln for no good, apparent reason, twisting or cracking. But oh, when you lay eyes on those few that make it, and envision the guns they will make..... inspirational enough to make you want to do it all over again.
