hard maple vs soft maple - is one or the other preferred?

You got a lot of good information in the replies to date, but one thing
not mentioned is that soft maple can have a slight grey tinge to it
when compared side by side with true hard maple. Don't get me wrong,
both are nice and you can make really nice pieces from soft maple. For
example, the "stock" kitchen cabinets in my house were made from soft
maple, and they look and perform just fine, but when I duplicated the
design for cabinets my laundry room in hard maple, the crisp whiteness
of the hard maple in direct comparison is apparent, and frankly I
prefer the crispy white.

Mutt

I guess I got a deal on my hard maple then, paid $3.20 or so a bd/ft
and it is undoubtedly crispy white. I must admit I picked through
about 1500 board feet to get my 600 bd ft. But the color was pretty
consistent as I was checking with a block plane during the picking, I
guess it depends on where its grown - this stuff was from central
Pennsylvania around Williamsport. The soft was about $2.35.

<[email protected]> wrote:

> when would hard be preferred over soft? and vice versa?
>
> other than "how is the piece going to be used" are there some other
> reasons to pick hard over soft?
>
> I picked up some HD birch/maple 3/4" plywood for shop cabinets,
> built-in bookcase, and misc other cabinetry furniture. Should I trim
> it with soft or hard maple? Thoughts?

Soft. The hard variety is from old growth and that is not a source that
is sustainable forever.

--
mare

On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 16:34:50 -0500, mare <mare*Remove*All*0f*This*I*Hate*Spammers*@mac.invalid.com> wrote:
>
> Soft. The hard variety is from old growth and that is not a source that
> is sustainable forever.

No, they're different trees, entirely. And hard maple _is_ sustanable,
it just takes a while to get a good sized tree. I've got acres of 'em
growing (slowly) that some day my grandkids will hopefully get rich on.

Dave Hinz

Doug Miller wrote:

> saccharum (sugar maple), but A. rubrum is harder than black ash or
> American elm, as hard as cherry, and nearly as hard as black walnut.

I can confirm that in actual use too. I don't know for a fact that the
"soft maple" is Acer rubrum, but it was branded as "soft maple" and was
only a tad more expensive than poplar. Cheaper than birch, I think, and
prettier too.

Anyway, I have (actually Dad has) a walnut/soft maple chess box that has
seen a fair amount of use in the last year. I did a pretty good job on it,
if I do say so myself, and the surface of the board is as seamless and
glass-like today as it was a year ago. That's not exactly a long running
test of time, but it's still encouraging that there is absolutely no
indication that the "soft" squares are faring any differently from the
harder walnut ones, and it still feels like the entire surface is a single
piece of wood. The two woods seem to be very evenly matched.

--
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Richard Clements wrote:

> so a BIG YOU SUCK to all easterners, with your cheep hard wood. and no
> the Apolations are not real mountains so there! >:|

Maybe not, but they sure have your rocky crags licked for genetic diversity.

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
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http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/

"Doug Miller" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:nj%[email protected]...
> >there was a show food network a little while ago on making syrup like
this,
> >he did it on a BBQ on the back patio, never did explain why, I just
thought
> >it was because of the smell, good to know if I ever try this myself,
> >unlikely here in Idaho, but you never know
> >
> No, nothing to do with the smell. The steam coming out smells like maple
syrup
> and, oddly enough, potatoes. It's an unusual smell, but by no means
> unpleasant.

There's also a LOT of moisture produced as you boil it down. Don't want too
much of that indoors.

Lot of steam coming out of the sugar shacks in the spring up here.

Doug Miller wrote:

> In article <[email protected]>,
> Hank Gillette <[email protected]> wrote:
>>In article <[email protected]>,
>> [email protected] (Doug Miller) wrote:
>>
>>> Hard maple = principally Acer saccharum (sugar maple), less commonly A.
>>> nigrum
>>> (black maple). Some botanists classify nigrum as a variety of saccharum;
>>> certainly the sap is as sweet. (In fact, of the trees in my yard that I
>>> tap, the lone black maple gives more and sweeter sap than any of the
>>> sugar maples.)
>>
>>You do your own maple syrup? How much sap do you get per tree? Where are
>>you located?
>>
> Yes, we do. Typical yield runs around 35 to 40 quarts of sap per tree,
> which turns into about the same number of *ounces* of syrup. We're in
> Indianapolis.
>
> CAUTION: if you're thinking of doing this at home, be sure to vent the
> steam *outdoors*. Don't boil it down in an open kettle in the kitchen.
> Some substance resembling latex boils off in the steam. You *don't* want
> that coating your kitchen ceiling. My mom said one of her uncles did that
> once as a kid... and they never, ever got the ceiling completely clean. I
> use a pressure cooker with the regulator removed, and a piece of poly
> tubing over the regulator fitting to carry the steam outdoors. Every so
> often, I have to ream out the discharge end of the tube to keep it clear
> of this gunk.
>
> --
> Regards,
> Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
>
> Get a copy of my NEW AND IMPROVED TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter
> by sending email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com
> You must use your REAL email address to get a response.

there was a show food network a little while ago on making syrup like this,
he did it on a BBQ on the back patio, never did explain why, I just thought
it was because of the smell, good to know if I ever try this myself,
unlikely here in Idaho, but you never know

So vent your dryer into a filter and recapture both heat and moisture like
we do.


"Doug Miller" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:dy%[email protected]...
>
> In the quantities I'm dealing with, maybe 40 gallons of sap, boiled down
over
> three or four weeks' time, I doubt that would be too much of a problem.
The
> house could use a bit of extra humidity in late Jan - early Feb...
>

Hard maple is much more common in some locations because soft goes for
hardwood pulp. Pulp goes by the pound, and soft maple, because it runs to
larger darker heartwood than hard, and is heavier than aspen or conifers, is
a better pulp load but worse sawlog.

<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I guess I got a deal on my hard maple then, paid $3.20 or so a bd/ft
> and it is undoubtedly crispy white. I must admit I picked through
> about 1500 board feet to get my 600 bd ft. But the color was pretty
> consistent as I was checking with a block plane during the picking, I
> guess it depends on where its grown - this stuff was from central
> Pennsylvania around Williamsport. The soft was about $2.35.
>

let me say this YOU SUCK!

soft maple costs me $5.15 and thats at the cheepest place in town. your
getting soft maple at the same price I get poplur, the only thing I can get
cheaper is fir/pine and that's not much cheaper

so a BIG YOU SUCK to all easterners, with your cheep hard wood. and no the
Apolations are not real mountains so there! >:|

[email protected] wrote:

> I guess I got a deal on my hard maple then, paid $3.20 or so a bd/ft
> and it is undoubtedly crispy white. I must admit I picked through
> about 1500 board feet to get my 600 bd ft. But the color was pretty
> consistent as I was checking with a block plane during the picking, I
> guess it depends on where its grown - this stuff was from central
> Pennsylvania around Williamsport. The soft was about $2.35.

>
> other than "how is the piece going to be used" are there some other
> reasons to pick hard over soft?

I am doing a test, albeit unintentionally. I turned a couple of woodworkers
mallets with walnut handles and maple heads. I realized after the 2nd one
was in process that it, unlike its predicessor (a month or so before) was
soft maple. While the color is a little different, it is hard to tell the
difference in use. They feel the same, sound the same and seem to be
'dinging' the same (which is to say, not very much). Time will tell.

In article <1goslzn.1clnhxq1piem20N%mare*Remove*All*0f*This*I*Hate*Spammers*@mac.invalid.com>, mare*Remove*All*0f*This*I*Hate*Spammers*@mac.invalid.com (mare) wrote:
><[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> when would hard be preferred over soft? and vice versa?
>>
>> other than "how is the piece going to be used" are there some other
>> reasons to pick hard over soft?
>>
>> I picked up some HD birch/maple 3/4" plywood for shop cabinets,
>> built-in bookcase, and misc other cabinetry furniture. Should I trim
>> it with soft or hard maple? Thoughts?
>
>Soft. The hard variety is from old growth and that is not a source that
>is sustainable forever.
>

The distinction between hard maple and soft maple has nothing to do with old
growth versus recent growth. They're different species, and there's plenty of
hard maple that isn't "old growth". Heck, I have better than a half a dozen
sugar maple trees in my back yard that are *all* less than fifty years old.

Hard maple = principally Acer saccharum (sugar maple), less commonly A. nigrum
(black maple). Some botanists classify nigrum as a variety of saccharum;
certainly the sap is as sweet. (In fact, of the trees in my yard that I tap,
the lone black maple gives more and sweeter sap than any of the sugar maples.)

Soft maple = almost any other species of maple, chiefly A. rubrum (red maple)
and A. saccharinum (silver maple).


--
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Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

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why use soft?

-j

<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> when would hard be preferred over soft? and vice versa?
>
> other than "how is the piece going to be used" are there some other
> reasons to pick hard over soft?
>
> I picked up some HD birch/maple 3/4" plywood for shop cabinets,
> built-in bookcase, and misc other cabinetry furniture. Should I trim
> it with soft or hard maple? Thoughts?

thanks all, I have my answers.

though it's called "soft" it's relative hardness is right there with
cherry and walnut, and back of hard maple and oak.

as long as i'm not using it for a baseball bat, i should be ok ;-)

and able to afford the mistakes i'm going to make !!

On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 13:10:45 -0700,
[email protected] wrote:

>when would hard be preferred over soft? and vice versa?
>
>other than "how is the piece going to be used" are there some other
>reasons to pick hard over soft?
>
>I picked up some HD birch/maple 3/4" plywood for shop cabinets,
>built-in bookcase, and misc other cabinetry furniture. Should I trim
>it with soft or hard maple? Thoughts?

In article <[email protected]>, "George" <george@least>
wrote:

> "Doug Miller" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:nj%[email protected]...
> > >there was a show food network a little while ago on making syrup like
> this,
> > >he did it on a BBQ on the back patio, never did explain why, I just
> thought
> > >it was because of the smell, good to know if I ever try this myself,
> > >unlikely here in Idaho, but you never know
> > >
> > No, nothing to do with the smell. The steam coming out smells like maple
> syrup
> > and, oddly enough, potatoes. It's an unusual smell, but by no means
> > unpleasant.
>
> There's also a LOT of moisture produced as you boil it down. Don't want too
> much of that indoors.
>
> Lot of steam coming out of the sugar shacks in the spring up here.
>
>
>

Those larger syrup producers use reverse osmosis to get rid of the first
90% of the water. I attend the festivals around here every year (SW
Ontario) I eat maple syrup pancakes till I wobble.

In article <[email protected]>, "George" <george@least> wrote:
>
>There's also a LOT of moisture produced as you boil it down. Don't want too
>much of that indoors.

In the quantities I'm dealing with, maybe 40 gallons of sap, boiled down over
three or four weeks' time, I doubt that would be too much of a problem. The
house could use a bit of extra humidity in late Jan - early Feb...

If the moisture were all you had to worry about, you could easily vent it with
a kitchen range hood. But after seeing the gunk that builds up in my vent
tube, I think I don't want that in my range hood.
>
>Lot of steam coming out of the sugar shacks in the spring up here.

Yeah, but they're processing thousands of gallons of sap, too. You couldn't do
that on your kitchen stove if you wanted to.

--
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Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

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On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 12:25:27 -0700, Richard Clements
<[email protected]> wrote:

>let me say this YOU SUCK!
>
>soft maple costs me $5.15 and thats at the cheepest place in town. your
>getting soft maple at the same price I get poplur, the only thing I can get
>cheaper is fir/pine and that's not much cheaper
>
>so a BIG YOU SUCK to all easterners, with your cheep hard wood. and no the
>Apolations are not real mountains so there! >:|

Three years ago I had the chance to take a church in Ohio, right in
the middle of hardwood forests. Thought about it seriously just
because it was closer to lots of good wood. Ended up in Central
Oregon. There is a reason this is called "high desert". Sagebrush and
Juniper.

But the mountains *are* nice.

Tim Douglass

http://www.DouglassClan.com

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] (Doug Miller) wrote:

> Hard maple = principally Acer saccharum (sugar maple), less commonly A.
> nigrum
> (black maple). Some botanists classify nigrum as a variety of saccharum;
> certainly the sap is as sweet. (In fact, of the trees in my yard that I tap,
> the lone black maple gives more and sweeter sap than any of the sugar
> maples.)

You do your own maple syrup? How much sap do you get per tree? Where are
you located?

--
Hank Gillette

>Richard Clements wrote:
>
>> so a BIG YOU SUCK to all easterners, with your cheep hard wood. and no
>> the Apolations are not real mountains so there! >:|
>

Neither are the appellations. Now, the Appalachians, they are at least
some tall hills (says someone who grew up in the Rocky Mountain state).

In article <[email protected]>, Richard Clements <[email protected]> wrote:
>Doug Miller wrote:
>>
>> CAUTION: if you're thinking of doing this at home, be sure to vent the
>> steam *outdoors*. Don't boil it down in an open kettle in the kitchen.
>> Some substance resembling latex boils off in the steam. You *don't* want
>> that coating your kitchen ceiling. My mom said one of her uncles did that
>> once as a kid... and they never, ever got the ceiling completely clean. I
>> use a pressure cooker with the regulator removed, and a piece of poly
>> tubing over the regulator fitting to carry the steam outdoors. Every so
>> often, I have to ream out the discharge end of the tube to keep it clear
>> of this gunk.

>there was a show food network a little while ago on making syrup like this,
>he did it on a BBQ on the back patio, never did explain why, I just thought
>it was because of the smell, good to know if I ever try this myself,
>unlikely here in Idaho, but you never know
>
No, nothing to do with the smell. The steam coming out smells like maple syrup
and, oddly enough, potatoes. It's an unusual smell, but by no means
unpleasant.


--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

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In article <[email protected]>, "J" <[email protected]> wrote:
>why use soft?
>
It's a *lot* less expensive, and often has better figure. And with respect to
maples, "soft" is something of a relative term anyway. Lumber from Acer rubrum
(red maple) is sold as soft maple to distinguish it from that of A. saccharum
(sugar maple), but A. rubrum is harder than black ash or American elm, as hard
as cherry, and nearly as hard as black walnut.

--
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In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] wrote:
>You got a lot of good information in the replies to date, but one thing
>not mentioned is that soft maple can have a slight grey tinge to it
>when compared side by side with true hard maple. Don't get me wrong,
>both are nice and you can make really nice pieces from soft maple. For
>example, the "stock" kitchen cabinets in my house were made from soft
>maple, and they look and perform just fine, but when I duplicated the
>design for cabinets my laundry room in hard maple, the crisp whiteness
>of the hard maple in direct comparison is apparent, and frankly I
>prefer the crispy white.

While we're on the topic, it's worth noting that (a) lots of hard maple does
*not* have that crispy white color, and (b) the wood that does have it carries
a premium price because of it.

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In article <[email protected]>, Hank Gillette <[email protected]> wrote:
>In article <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] (Doug Miller) wrote:
>
>> Hard maple = principally Acer saccharum (sugar maple), less commonly A.
>> nigrum
>> (black maple). Some botanists classify nigrum as a variety of saccharum;
>> certainly the sap is as sweet. (In fact, of the trees in my yard that I tap,
>> the lone black maple gives more and sweeter sap than any of the sugar
>> maples.)
>
>You do your own maple syrup? How much sap do you get per tree? Where are
>you located?
>
Yes, we do. Typical yield runs around 35 to 40 quarts of sap per tree, which
turns into about the same number of *ounces* of syrup. We're in Indianapolis.

CAUTION: if you're thinking of doing this at home, be sure to vent the steam
*outdoors*. Don't boil it down in an open kettle in the kitchen. Some
substance resembling latex boils off in the steam. You *don't* want that
coating your kitchen ceiling. My mom said one of her uncles did that once as a
kid... and they never, ever got the ceiling completely clean. I use a pressure
cooker with the regulator removed, and a piece of poly tubing over the
regulator fitting to carry the steam outdoors. Every so often, I have to ream
out the discharge end of the tube to keep it clear of this gunk.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

Get a copy of my NEW AND IMPROVED TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter
by sending email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com
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