Well, more accurately, silver maple is _one_ of the soft maples.

Its tangential/radial shrinkage ratio is the worst among commercial maples,
and its specific gravity of .44 is quite a bit lower than the most commonly
used (eastern) "soft" maple - red maple - at .49.

Of course, it's about as good as it gets on the left coast.

"Phisherman" wrote in message
...
Silver Maple is also known as Soft Maple. Silver Maple is used for
furniture, turning, veneer, musical instruments, and flooring. Silver
Maple is softer and less dense than Hard Maple. You should not have
any problems working it in the shop. Silver Maple trees are known for
breaking up water pipes and they have many surface roots--not a good
landscaping tree.

On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 14:27:15 GMT, "." wrote:

I have some land that has open space that I plan to plant trees on for
eventual use in my shop. I enjoy working with maple and was wondering if
silver maple is any good. It is the fastest growing of all maple trees
but
when I read up on them, their downfall as a tree is that they are brittle
and limbs snap easily. Would this be a problem as well when working with
it
in the shop?

Thanks in advance
Craig Orput
Camas WA