In article , (todd the wood junkie) wrote:
"Great firewood" compared to what? Poplar? IME, silver maple burns rapidly to

ashes, whereas sugar maple burns slowly to coals as oak, ash, and hickory do.


Great firewood meaning it burns well. No, not as long as harder woods
like osage and locust, but thick cuts last a good while and produce a
nice clean bed of coals to cook the black locust.

Silver maple? I don't think so. Maybe you're burning red maple?

Excellent wood for a
cutting board center, and easy on knives. Worked well, and is a nice
tight grained wood. It is called soft maple, but it's up there with
cherry, mahogany, and walnut in it's hardness.

Cherry and mahogany, yes. Walnut, no. Silver maple is only about 2/3 as hard
as walnut.


Here are the (dry) hardness numbers for each of the above. When I say
'up there', I guess it's implied that it is 'close' to the others. In
2 cases its actually HARDER. In the case of walnut, you are
incorrect. It is only lower by 60 lbs of force or approx 5%.

Your figures are in error.

Soft maple

First error: we were discussing _silver_ maple specifically. "Soft" maple can
be any of several species, primarily Acer saccharinum (silver) and A. rubrum
(red). There is a *huge* difference in hardness and density between the two.

Specific Gravity 0.54
Hardness 950 lbs

Second error: those figures are for red maple. As noted above, we are
discussing _silver_ maple, for which the corresponding figures are
SG: 0.47
Side hardness: 700 lbs

Black walnut
Specific Gravity 0.59
Hardness 1010 lbs

700 is "about 2/3" of 1010, no?

Cherry
Specific Gravity 0.54
Hardness 660 lbs

Third error: you read the wrong line in the table. The other hardness figures
you cited are for 12% moisture content, but this one is for green lumber. The
correct figure is 950 lbs, not 660.

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

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