The Many Faces of Maple – A Woodworkers Guide to the Many Varieties of Maple Lumber
The Many Faces of Maple – A Woodworkers Guide to the Many Varieties of Maple Lumber
This video is all about the different looks of Maple. Maple is a super versatile wood both in it’s usefulness and in it’s appearance. There are two main categories of Maple Lumber; hard or soft, but there are endless varieties of the woods appearance from clear maple to curly maple, tiger maple, quilted maple, birds eye maple, brown maple, rustic maple, salted maple, country maple, fiddle back maple and more. This makes it a beautiful wood to work with.
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#woodworking #woodworker #hardwood #curlymaple #birdseyemaple #maplelumber
Wow I always thought wood was wood but actually when you learn more about it, it’s pretty cool!
My favorite is the birdseye maple. My wife loves the spalted maple, so my last trip for lumber I bought a couple of cool spalted maple boards.
The luster on the kid’s table was gorgeous!
And what do guitar players think of maple? Love
Can I build a small home with maple trees logs?
Great job Dave!!
Great information ! Now I know what the black lines are in my antique oak table. Thanks
I don’t understand why people don’t recommend soft maple for hardwood floors, I see no problem using Red Maple, perhaps not Silver Maple since it’s significantly softer. Red Maple is even used for guitar necks.
The thing is that it’s difficult to know if what you’re buying is red maple if you’re buying soft maple because it’s usually not specified. So you don’t know if you’re getting red maple, silver maple or bigleaf maple.
The best cuts are used in guitar facings. I had an 1877 house velvet had a Birdseye wainscot dining room it is some hard stuff. I like any of the sculptured, Birdseye spalted etc i’m going to be building guitar so I really like some thing that has an interesting pattern because if I paint it will be with a translucent candy apple so you get to see all that cool grain. It seems to be the big-time popular thing in guitars I’d like to use solid chunks of wood a lot of places are just using quarter inch thick veneer I have a farm with my own trees to cut and woodmiser sawmill at my Amish friends house I always wondered how much you would be able to tell by looking at a tree if the wood was going to be unique. I know where there was a whole forest of Birdseye looking maple trees they were growing in a really wet area with poor drainage Somebody had a fortune on that property it was 15 acres of Birdseye maple trees
Can I buy maple wood here ???
Very informative!! Great job Dave!!
I was looking for information on the birdseye maple because a guitar I ordered has a birdseye maple fret board.
Yes bro i love figured woods. Maple is always nice because it is light and can show the figuring easier than darker woods. We both know that there are different grades in each type of figuring. My favorites have to be a high grade flame/birdseye. I actually have a Squier p bass with a flamed/birdseye neck but it isn’t highly figured although it is clearly gorgeous. Burl is really awesome looking too but it doesn’t have the "shimmer" that other figuring like quilt and flame have. Sometimes you get really cool looking burl where the rot looks like little skulls, ghosts, faces, etc… . I also have a Squier with a flamed nato body where the back is like a AAA flame and the front has the "hair" wavy lines with some wide but light contrast. Love the random figured wood squier uses. Makes the already totally great deal even better. One more. I have a 1978 p bass with a dense ash body that has some cool criss cross figuring ans also a few more squiers with figured necks.
Dave, on the last piece of your work you showed, you said it was all maple, but the drawers and surrounding was painted! No!
Okay, it’s your house, your stuff but paint over maple is sac religious… it goes against the grain so to speak. Staining or dyeing it, not paint!
Okay, I’m mostly kidding around with you. Your work is beautiful. Your finished look outstanding, and your design are very pleasant to look at. You are a very accomplished woodworker!
Thanks for this video. Your narrative is pleasant and informative. Great job sir! (But paint on the maple. Ouch!) ha ha…
Great work man and nice father in law!
What stain did you use on the bench shown in the video? And, do you use pre-conditioner prior to staining.
Thanks allot 👍
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Hey Dave, thanks for this awesome video! I am an intermediate level woodworker from BC. The suppliers over here group maple into "eastern" or "western". The eastern is much lighter in colour so I am assuming it is hard, and the western soft. Have you ever had to deal with those categories?
here’s a pic of a slab I bucked great video of birds eye maple
Excellent video, detailed and informative. Thank you!
Tanx Dave interesting to watch. I am working with birch .but found some nice looking pieces of Swedish maple at home.
excellent, excellent , excellent practical lecture–thank you
I remember as a kid seeing Birdseye maple a lot in Roman Catholic priest quarters and church wardrobes – now it creeps me out like I’m being watched…. So I think my new fav is the "quilted" – which is used in many solid-body guitars (veneer on MDF.)
Amazing variety – around here (the Destruction Derby of California) solid maple is for Chieftains only – so I’m getting veneer for the faces of my birch ply construction experimental designs to finally finish them right going forward. Even at 1/32" it’s STILL expensive as hell. ($60 / 2×8 veneer with 3M peel and stick on back.)
Wish me good luck!
Very informative! Question: can you tell from a particular tree before it is felled whether it will have a quilted, flamed, or other type of figuring to it? Maybe from characteristics in the bark, the tree’s size, etc?
Tiger maple 🌲😎🌲✌️
Wow. You must work Really hard! Let’s be Friends 😀
Hi
Glad to see your video
I am from India🇮🇳 an artist a painter and a sculpturist
Now a days trying to make a violin with maple and spruce but can’t get it. Could you supply it?
hi dave i live in northern maine next to the canadain border of new bruswick..i went to a yrd sale and saw this sad looking sewing cabinet, water stained , finish basically gone and just dirty . i bought it for 30.00 and was that thing HEAVY…to make this short i scrubbed it and found it had some birdseye maple veneer…what reasearch i THINK it could be is due to its weight…i THINK it could be,,, rock blond /birdeye maple. i stripped it with citrus stripper and scrubbed it with ajax soap.to get out the stripper.let it dry…its beautiful when wet..THIS.IS WHATS THROWING ME ABOUT THIS PIECE…the legs ..are 1 piece solid RED WOOD. no smells…beautiful grains lines..BUT SOLID RED WOOD NO VERIGRATING IN IT..the red is deep red..not like cedar. im asking you is red maple like this???? from what i think…its a singer sewing cabinet from maybe the 50s? i was told due to the base hole for the machine….it was made for a slant o matic .there is NO MARKING/#S/ TAGS/ LABEL S/ NOTHING ..anywhere on this cabinet. and i have found 1 piece on pin intrest..no info or descrpition. so no info to go on…. i did research singer history.and found out a cabinet factory for singer had a massive fire..in bentwood,oregon? i have to re chk…total loss. i dont know maybe thats why i cant find any info on this cabinet …it came from that factory??? i have no idea if this is even a singer cabinet to be honest..i tried looking at there 1940, 50, 60 ads for thier machine and offer cabinets.. but none are my style..from what i understood singer machines/ cabinets were 2/500.00 at that time…which wasnt cheap. it would have almost cost 20/30 %of their income at that time…and they were sold seperate. they had payment plans , also so they could buy them. but i have never come across a piece like this…from the weight/ style/ woods… this was very expensive!!! its damm heavy wood. i dont know if the legs might be seqoia/ redwood? or maybe cherry??? but when its dry …its blonde…when wet… its a deep red color … again no smell to indicate what wood it is. can you help? i was going to stain it . but now i am nervous the legs would turn out almost black with a darker stain…which i didnt want..i might end up just polying it without stain..i have a very old mission style oak high back chair i wanted to go with this cabinet..i left the orig finish but went back over it with a dark walnut stain..which..i CONSIDERED DOING with this cabinet..JUST ENOUGH STAIN to bring out the grains ..cant now . with red legs.. so..i was hoping you could help.. sorry this was so long.. have a great wkend
My favorite it tiger maple. I’m ordering unfinished shaker maple cabinets for my kitchen. The design is more on the modern side. I wanted to know if the grain can be popped with a glazing in regular maple to show the variations in the wood. I’ve seen glazing done with tiger maple, oak, and other geographical woods, but not regular maple. Can it be done, and will it look good?
You missed tiger maple
Just seen this video for the first time! Very good info. I recently started slabbing wood for tables and other projects. My first maple ended up being an ambrosia maple. Turned out some great patterns
I love the birds eye maple. That stuff is gorgeous.
hey Dave…how do you think Maple would go as kitchen bench tops?….im a guitar maker and i love maple and thought it might be a good for bench tops?
Hello my friend,
Information grows as it rolls like a snowball.
It’s nice to create and share a variety of ideas to help many people. Congratulations. See you. great greetings…
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I love this information. I am a beginner. Could you please help me understand the difference between hardwood maple and softwood maple?
I just picked up Book match spalted Maple to make a 4′ by 8′ kitchen table. I absolutely love the markings And I think originally it was a curly Maple I see the marks in spots like what you showed. Thank you for the video
We have several pieces of furnature that our parents had from the 50’s and 60’s that are made of Maple. Almost all those pieces are the same color, kind of a light red. I need to refinish the kitchen table which is a piece that has that color. Striping the finish off and sanding down the surface to hopefully a nice smooth top again will bring me the my question. The color? do you think these pieces we have are stained or is this a natural color that comes out when a Poly is applied?
What stain did you use on the bench shown in the video?
Hi …can I use maple outside
Maple is not poplar. Oh sorry, you said POPULAR 😀
Black Maple is also considered hard maple but slightly softer than Sugar Maple.
Red Maple is the hardest out of the Soft Maple.
Second hardest would be Bigleaf Maple which is a tree native to the west coast, and then Box elder. Apparently Silver Maple is the softest.
Striped maple is another one classified as soft maple but its wood is probably uncommon as it’s generally a smaller tree.
Dave – Great video. Thanks for teaching the many different kinds of maple that are out there. I’m a beginning woodworker, so don’t have many favorites yet, but I think maple might be a good choice for future projects. Blessings to you and your family from the retired Pastor in Davenport, Iowa.
Very informative and interesting video. Thank you!
I like all type of maple, but especially quilted, tiger, and curly. I am currently building a table/stand out of some leftover clear maple hardwood flooring for my wife’s orchids.
Thanks for the information, was hoping to pick up some refinishing tips to increase grain contrast, but have struck out so far. BTW, Sycamore (or Platanus) is not a maple, it’s a completely different genus. Maples (Acers) are not necessarily slow growers. Most are fairly fast growers, (at least in warm climates) some species are very fast.
Can you know if my violin wood is maple?