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?

why use soft?

-j

wrote in message
...
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 1goslzn.1clnhxq1piem20N%mare*Remove*All*0f*This*I , id.com (mare) wrote:
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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In article , "J" 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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On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 16:34:50 -0500, mare lid.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

mare writes:

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.


Say what? Soft maple grows faster than hard maple, but "old growth" for hard
maple is way under 100 years. Much of it is in sugar bush country these days,
and it is replanted annually as older trees lose their sap producing ability.

Charlie Self
"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." Sir Winston
Churchill

J asks:


why use soft?

-j

wrote in message
.. .
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?

Money. Soft maple is significantly cheaper than hard maple these days.

Charlie Self
"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." Sir Winston
Churchill

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,
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?

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 , otforme (Charlie Self) wrote:

why use soft?

Money. Soft maple is significantly cheaper than hard maple these days.

Always has been, not just "these days".

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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.

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/

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

In article .com, 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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Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

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In article , Richard Clements 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.


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"Doug Miller" wrote in message
m...
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.

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.

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


"Doug Miller" wrote in message
m...

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.

wrote in message
oups.com...
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! :|

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.

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
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/

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).

Tim Douglass responds:

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

I just finished writing an article about a vacation home in Amherst County, VA.
Up a mountainside. It is steep enough that the road (dirt and winding) was
kicking my S10's rear end out on the switchbacks. I'd liked to have been up
there in the fall. Gorgeous area. Two pileated woodpeckers nearby as I drove
back down. And, the real reward, I could still BREATHE when I got near the top!

Charlie Self
"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." Sir Winston
Churchill