"Leo Van Der Loo" wrote in message
...
Hi Mike

Maple, any kind can be bland or just beautiful, just depend on the tree,
and from where and how you cut the blanks out of the log, quilted, tiger
stripe, curly, reaction wood, bird eye, etc. are all types of maple wood,
and give you some idea of all the shades of maple lumber around.
I have turned a good number of turnings out off silver Maple, it is not a
problem wood, either for turning or drying, but you have to follow some
common sense rules when working with it, to keep the wood from splitting
and cracking, you have to give the wood the time to loose the moisture, so
that the stresses stay below the point where the wood will split.

Seal the end grain of the logs and rough turn as soon as possible, keep
wall thickness approx. at 10% of Dia. then either put in paper bags or
seal the rough outs with a log end wood sealer.

For making weed pots or and candle holders the same thing counts, keep
them in paper bags or seal with wood sealer, but the bigger solid or
almost solid turnings, they still like to crack, though a lot of times if
you wait till the wood has totally dried the cracks close up and are
barely noticed, specially if you turn the crack to the backside (G).

For the bark-on turnings, like GEORGE mentions, the early spring is not
the best time for a lot of woods to keep the bark on, from the time when
the bark of oak logs and limbs was used for the leather tanning industry,
the bark was taken in early spring when it came off easily after clubbing
it, still, what do you have to loose, other than some bark, give it a try,
only practice and experience will make you a better turner.
ca glue might keep the bark on for you, but even without the bark it can
be nice, so don't waste more time. GO FOR IT !!

There is some silver maple on my web site, if you care,

http://homepage.mac.com/l.vanderloo/PhotoAlbum12.html

Have fun and take care
Leo Van Der Loo


My problem now is my lathe is not big enough! I'm going to have to turn
smaller bowls to fit on the lathe (Jet mini lathe). I tried turning a
larger piece, as large that would fit between centers and not hit the bed,
problem was the tool rest is now a good 4-6 inches from the surface as i had
to put it on past the center on the right and it will not move any closer.
I'm not turning something that large and heavy just suspended from a tenon
until I have a good amount of wood removed, but the tools are not reaching
without considerable danger to hands and poor control.

So looks like lots of small bowls, lidded containers, etc. No big though, I
need the practice and will be fun turning! But man I GOTTA get a bigger
lathe.

thanks for all the advice so far.

Mike Rinken