Woodworking Network: In North America, the maple species are divided into two groups: soft maple (which includes red maple, Acer rubrum, silver maple, A. saccharinum, and bigleaf maple, A. macrophyllum) and hard maple (which includes sugar maple, A. Saccharum, and black maple, A. Nigrum). Once the lumber is manufactured, it is possible with 10x magnification to separate hard maple from soft maple as hard maples have ray cells of two different widths (seen from the end grain) while soft maples have one width. Soft maple also tends to be softer, lighter weight, weaker and dingier colored than hard maple.
2 comments:
The intricacies of wood are so interesting! I find it especially fascinating how the terms “soft” and “hard” maple can be so easily misunderstood. They are meant to be relative to one another, “soft” being so named because it is softer than “hard” and vice versa. However, many people take those terms to be absolute terms rather than relative ones. In many people’s minds soft wood can feel like it will not be strong enough for their uses. However, as this article points out, soft woods are usually perfectly adequate for most uses. For example, furniture, flooring, and cabinets are strong enough with just being built with soft woods. I didn’t know that soft and hard woods behaved differently in syrup production as well. It’s fascinating that softer woods yield less than hard woods. I wonder if the difference in grain textures affects the effectiveness of different saws for cutting it.
This was nicely informative. I’ve worked with a decent amount of lumber, but I rarely stop to think about why certain types of wood have the properties that they do. I appreciate the suggestions that this article offers and that it explains the reasoning behind each one. I also learned that silver maple grows in the east coast. I knew about the red maple, but didn’t realize that silver maple had a similar growth endemically. The pounds per square inch or ‘strength’ statistics are pretty cool, especially with the elasticity. The rupture and hardness numbers are also pretty profound, but the elasticity seems incredible. It’s interesting that red maple is 10% harder and 15% heavier than silver, making it stronger and stiffer. I’d suppose this has to do with the higher density of red, considering the grain and structure is pretty similar. It’s good to know that the soft maples are actually pretty good bets for things that I might assume I’d need a harder wood for.
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