What Does Hard Maple Wood Look Like

Soft maple varieties are more comparable to birch in hardness and application than hard maple.

What does hard maple wood look like.

Now it may look like hard maple is heads and tails above the rest and to a certain extent it is but for reference black cherry has a janka hardness of 950 lb f the same as red maple and black walnut is rated at 1 010 lb f also note that black maple not pictured isn t quite as hard as its close relative hard maple and ranks in the mid range with a hardness of 1 180 lb f. Furthermore some maples produce a bird s eye or curly wood which is high prized for its beauty. Maple wood is also used for the manufacture of wooden baseball bats though less often than ash or hickory due to the tendency of maple bats to shatter if they do break. Soft maple is also often referred to as tiger maple for the tiger like stripes in the wood or curly maple if the stripes are a bit more of the curly nature.

The term soft maple is a bit of a comparative misnomer as soft maple is harder than many other hardwoods such as cherry. When you hear maple you might be thinking of the distinctive maple tree or even maple syrup but the wood species of maple is actually sold under two distinct types. Soft maple which comes from a few different species and hard maple which comes from the sugar maple tree which produces maple syrup. Distinctive features of the grain produce the famous birds eye and curly figured.

Sugar maple wood often known as hard maple is the wood of choice for bowling pins bowling alley lanes pool cue shafts and butcher s blocks. Unlike most other hardwoods the sapwood of hard maple lumber is most commonly used rather than its heartwood sapwood color ranges from nearly white to an off white cream color sometimes with a reddish or golden hue. It best absorbs medium to dark stains and because of its ability to absorb dark stain with a depth of color brown maple can be finished to look much like cherry wood. The light colored wood is used for furniture flooring cabinets charcoal and firewood.

It resists wear and abrasion and is commonly found as flooring in gymnasiums and bowling alleys. Unless specified however our furniture will be made with hard maple that has a generally straight grain rather than with figured maple. Soft maple can be used as a substitute for hard maple to save money in situations where low to moderate density is called for such as profiled moldings trim plaques and carved items hard maple is roughly twice as hard as soft maple and is often reserved for structural items like workbenches and. Hard maple or sugar maple trees produce a high quality timber and yield maple syrup.

Spalted maple wood is very decorative as it often looks like a pen and ink drawing through the wood.