Hard vs Soft Maple - How To Tell?
 

So, I've got a coupla 1x2-6' hunks of "maple" sitting about. They look like
candidates for a cutting board to me, as an official woodtard (i.e. a
beginning wooddorker). Is there any way to tell the difference? One piece
is pretty white, whilst the other has a slight pinkish cast to it, almost
like very light red oak. Grain on both is pretty close to the same, if not
identical.

Is there any way to tell the species of these bits of wood? And really,
will it make much difference if these *aren't* hard maple and become an
end-grain cutting board?

Jason

It won't make any difference to the food whether it is hard or soft maple.

-j

"Jason Quick" wrote in message
...
So, I've got a coupla 1x2-6' hunks of "maple" sitting about. They look
like
candidates for a cutting board to me, as an official woodtard (i.e. a
beginning wooddorker). Is there any way to tell the difference? One
piece
is pretty white, whilst the other has a slight pinkish cast to it, almost
like very light red oak. Grain on both is pretty close to the same, if
not
identical.

Is there any way to tell the species of these bits of wood? And really,
will it make much difference if these *aren't* hard maple and become an
end-grain cutting board?

Jason

If you can easily make a thumb nail mark in it, it is likely soft maple.


"Jason Quick" wrote in message
...
So, I've got a coupla 1x2-6' hunks of "maple" sitting about. They look
like candidates for a cutting board to me, as an official woodtard (i.e. a
beginning wooddorker). Is there any way to tell the difference? One
piece is pretty white, whilst the other has a slight pinkish cast to it,
almost like very light red oak. Grain on both is pretty close to the
same, if not identical.

Is there any way to tell the species of these bits of wood? And really,
will it make much difference if these *aren't* hard maple and become an
end-grain cutting board?

Jason

In article , "Jason Quick" wrote:
So, I've got a coupla 1x2-6' hunks of "maple" sitting about. They look like
candidates for a cutting board to me, as an official woodtard (i.e. a
beginning wooddorker). Is there any way to tell the difference? One piece
is pretty white, whilst the other has a slight pinkish cast to it, almost
like very light red oak. Grain on both is pretty close to the same, if not
identical.

Is there any way to tell the species of these bits of wood?

Density. Pick one up. If it feels like "just a board" it's soft maple. If it
feels like "dang! this is a *heavy* board for its size" it's hard maple.

Another test: you can dent soft maple easily with your fingernail. You can
dent hard maple with a nail.

And really,
will it make much difference if these *aren't* hard maple and become an
end-grain cutting board?

Soft maple will wear faster, and it's more porous. But it'll work.

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

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

It was somewhere outside Barstow when "Jason Quick"
wrote:

Is there any way to tell the difference?

Density. Hard is more dense.

It's sufficient variation that you can make a good guess just by
picking up a board. Density forms a clear bimodal distribution -
there's some variation between species, but all the "hard" are quite a
bit more dense than all the "soft".

You can look it up in Bruce Hoadley's "Understanding Wood", but there's
not all that much "hardness" difference between the two; but hard maple
is slightly harder and denser and as the posts indicate you can judge
by heft. The way I tell the difference is that on a fresh cut or
planed piece that is not the end grain, the soft maple has a slight
greyish tinge to the wood, where the hard maple is a brisk white. I
made duplicates of my kitchen cabinets for the laundry room, and used
hard maple. When compared with the soft maple of the commercially made
units, you can tell the difference right away, hard is much brighter in
color. For cutting boards soft will be just fine.

Mutt

If it's got a lot of curly figure, it's soft.

In article .com, "Mutt" wrote:
You can look it up in Bruce Hoadley's "Understanding Wood", but there's
not all that much "hardness" difference between the two; but hard maple
is slightly harder and denser

Completely false. There's a *hell* of a difference in hardness between the
two, as anyone who has ever worked with both types could readily tell you.

Sugar maple is almost fifty percent harder than red and black maple, and
nearly *twice* as hard as bigleaf and silver maples.

and as the posts indicate you can judge
by heft. The way I tell the difference is that on a fresh cut or
planed piece that is not the end grain, the soft maple has a slight
greyish tinge to the wood, where the hard maple is a brisk white.

This is *not* a reliable method of telling them apart. *Some* hard maple is
bright white, but it can be considerably darker. And while *some* soft maple
is pinkish, *most* of it is *not*.


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

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

In article .com, wrote:
If it's got a lot of curly figure, it's soft.

Usually, but not necessarily. The curly figure does occur in hard maple (I
have a few such pieces sitting in the shop waiting to become something),
although it's much less common than in the softer species.

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

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

D
Usually, but not necessarily. The curly figure does occur in hard
maple (I
have a few such pieces sitting in the shop waiting to become
something),
although it's much less common than in the softer species.

I've got some birdseye hard maple waiting too !!

Hard maple will give a "ringing" sound when tapped with a mallet (often
used for violin & mandolin backs / sides for it's sound bouncing
capacity)
Soft maple has more of a "thunk"

JM2C

On 23 Feb 2005 15:43:37 -0800, wrote:

If it's got a lot of curly figure, it's soft.

I've got a plank of fiddlebacked hard maple that says you're wrong!
:)

It is a lot less common, though- I'll give you that.

Aut inveniam viam aut faciam

Native trees of Canada, by R C Hosie in notes under red maple (acer
rubrum L) . Maple lumber can be identified as "hard" or "soft", by
applying any solution of ferric salt to the sapwood---- blue stain,
soft, green stain , hard maple. A drug store may have ferric salts,
which can be dissolved in water and applied with an eye dropper.
I used this method with good results when trying to sort out
mixed piles of red and sugar maple logs while trying to sort out a
dispute on who cut what and on whose property.. I have not used it on
sawn lumber, obviously some sapwood must be present .

Ken

Gee, Doug, I don't want to start a flame, but you had to go make me go
look it up, and density of wood is expressed as the specific gravity as
compared to water. Sugar Maple has a specific gravity of 0.63, while
Red Maple is 0.54. That's not a 50% difference. That's according to
Hoadley's "Understanding Wood"). Silver, according to US Forrest
Service is 0.47 at 12% dry and Bigleaf is 0.48. There's a much bigger
chart here at page 5 of this pdf:

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fp...tr113/ch04.pdf

To get close to 50%, you're talking the difference between Sugar Maple
and Poplar, the latter having a sg of about 0.42. Even if you take the
structural "side hardness" from that same chart for these species, it
ain't 50%.

Hoadley also says Red is "...heartwood pale to light brown, sometimes
similar in color to light creamy sapwood, but often with a soft or
distinct greyish cast." Page 64 if you're interested. As we all know,
wood color can vary greatly and I didn't say this grey pallor was the
acid test, its just my experience.


Doug Miller wrote:
In article .com,
"Mutt" wrote:
You can look it up in Bruce Hoadley's "Understanding Wood", but
there's
not all that much "hardness" difference between the two; but hard
maple
is slightly harder and denser

Completely false. There's a *hell* of a difference in hardness
between the
two, as anyone who has ever worked with both types could readily tell
you.

Sugar maple is almost fifty percent harder than red and black maple,
and
nearly *twice* as hard as bigleaf and silver maples.

and as the posts indicate you can judge
by heft. The way I tell the difference is that on a fresh cut or
planed piece that is not the end grain, the soft maple has a slight
greyish tinge to the wood, where the hard maple is a brisk white.

This is *not* a reliable method of telling them apart. *Some* hard
maple is
bright white, but it can be considerably darker. And while *some*
soft maple
is pinkish, *most* of it is *not*.


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

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his
butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

In article .com, "Mutt" wrote:
Gee, Doug, I don't want to start a flame, but you had to go make me go
look it up, and density of wood is expressed as the specific gravity as
compared to water.

We were talking about hardness. Density is something altogether different.
Lead and gold, for example, are considerably denser than steel, but nowhere
near as hard.

Sugar Maple has a specific gravity of 0.63, while
Red Maple is 0.54. That's not a 50% difference. That's according to
Hoadley's "Understanding Wood"). Silver, according to US Forrest
Service is 0.47 at 12% dry and Bigleaf is 0.48. There's a much bigger
chart here at page 5 of this pdf:

Interesting, I'm sure, but as noted above, not relevant to the difference in
*hardness* between maple species.

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fp...tr113/ch04.pdf

To get close to 50%, you're talking the difference between Sugar Maple
and Poplar, the latter having a sg of about 0.42.

Still irrelevant. Density and hardness are *not* the same, and as these tables
show, they're not even terribly closely related.

Even if you take the
structural "side hardness" from that same chart for these species, it
ain't 50%.

True: it's a lot *more* than that. Sugar maple 1450, yellow poplar 540.

Side hardness of sugar maple and red maple are 1450 and 950, respectively, at
12% moisture content. 1450 is 52.6 percent more than 950.

I was looking at the figures for compression perpendicular to the grain, which
is also a useful measure of hardness. Here, it's red maple 1000, sugar maple
1470 (47 percent more).

Hoadley also says Red is "...heartwood pale to light brown, sometimes
similar in color to light creamy sapwood, but often with a soft or
distinct greyish cast." Page 64 if you're interested. As we all know,
wood color can vary greatly and I didn't say this grey pallor was the
acid test, its just my experience.

Wood color varies enough to render it of very little value in trying to tell
the difference between hard and soft maple.

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

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

Well, Doug, I guess you know more than Bruce Hoadley. He says "Density
(weight per unit volume) is the single most important indicator of
strength in wood and may therefore predict such characteristics as
hardness, ease of machining, and nailing resistance....Specific gravity
is often called the density index."

Mutt.

In article .com, "Mutt" wrote:
Well, Doug, I guess you know more than Bruce Hoadley. He says "Density
(weight per unit volume) is the single most important indicator of
strength in wood and may therefore predict such characteristics as
hardness, ease of machining, and nailing resistance....Specific gravity
is often called the density index."

I don't claim to know more than Bruce Hoadley, but I do claim that you're
misundertanding, or substantially misinterpreting, the passage which you
quote. To wit:

"Density is the single most important indicator of strength..."

I point out that density and strength, like density and hardness, are
different things. Lead is very dense, but it is neither strong nor hard.
Titanium is both strong and hard, but it is not dense. Glass is both dense and
hard, but it is not strong.

"... and MAY therefore PREDICT ... hardness" [my emphasis]

I point out that:
a) Hoadley says "MAY predict", not "DOES predict in all cases".
b) He also says "predict", not "is the same as".
c) The phrasing "density may predict hardness" *clearly* indicates that
density and hardness, while often related, are nonetheless two
_separate_and_distinct_ properties.

Materials have many physical properties. Among these are density, hardness,
and strength. While often related, the three are not necessarily directly
dependent upon one another, and are definitely *not* the same.

Just look at the Forest Products Lab book. The tables that you and I *both*
cited in earlier posts have _different_columns_ for density and for hardness.
That alone should make it obvious that the two are *not* the same.

An excellent example of this is a comparison between longleaf pine and
southern red oak. At 12% moisture content, the two species have identical
specific gravity (0.59). Side hardness, though, is a very different story: 870
lb-ft for the pine, 1060 for the oak (22% more).

Or compare longleaf pine (SG 0.59, SH 870) to black walnut (SG 0.55, SH 1010).
Walnut is 16% *harder* despite being 7% *less* dense.

That's because the two properties are not the same.

And Hoadley does not say that they are.

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

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

Doug Miller schreef
I point out that density and strength, like density and hardness, are
different things.

***
For the record, and belatedly: yes.
Yes, density, strength and hardness are different things
Yes, hard maple (there is only one species) is appr. 50% harder than soft
maple (at least two species).

Yes, in general, density is an indicator for both hardness and strength, but
a general trend is not a natural law.
PvR

PVR notes:

For the record, and belatedly: yes.
Yes, density, strength and hardness are different things
Yes, hard maple (there is only one species) is appr. 50% harder than
soft
maple (at least two species).

I have long understood that there are two species of hard maple, A.
saccharum and A. nigrum (black maple).

Mutt wrote:

Well, Doug, I guess you know more than Bruce Hoadley. He says "Density
(weight per unit volume) is the single most important indicator of
strength in wood and may therefore predict such characteristics as
hardness, ease of machining, and nailing resistance....Specific gravity
is often called the density index."

He does _not_ say that hardness is directly proportional to density, only
that there is a relationship.

Yes, in general denser woods will be harder than lighter woods, but that
does not mean that a wood that is twice as dense as another will
automatically be twice as hard.

Mutt.

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

In article .com, "Charlie Self" wrote:
PVR notes:

For the record, and belatedly: yes.
Yes, density, strength and hardness are different things
Yes, hard maple (there is only one species) is appr. 50% harder than
soft
maple (at least two species).

I have long understood that there are two species of hard maple, A.
saccharum and A. nigrum (black maple).

Yes, there are. Sort of. A. nigrum is often sold as "hard maple" and it is in
fact a whole lot harder than silver maple (A. saccharinum), sold as "soft
maple", but it's nowhere near as hard as A. saccharum, and isn't all that much
harder than red maple (A. rubrum) which is also sold as "soft maple".

Specifics: (side hardness in lf-ft)
saccharum 1450
nigrum 1180
rubrum 950
saccharinum 700

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

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

In article , "P van Rijckevorsel" wrote:
Doug Miller schreef
I point out that density and strength, like density and hardness, are
different things.

***
For the record, and belatedly: yes.
Yes, density, strength and hardness are different things
Yes, hard maple (there is only one species) is appr. 50% harder than soft
maple (at least two species).

Sugar maple (Acer saccharum) is about 50% harder than red maple (A.
rubrum), but it's *twice* as hard as silver maple (A. saccharinum).

Black maple (A. nigrum) is also sold commercially as "hard maple". Its
hardness is almost exactly midway between rubrum and saccharum.

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

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

Doug Miller wrote:



(with minor editing by FF)

Specifics: (side hardness in lf-ft) (Actually pounds force: lbf)
(Sugar) saccharum 1450
(Black) nigrum 1180
(Red) rubrum 950
(Silver) saccharinum 700


Also:

(Bigleaf) macrophyllum 833
(Boxelder) negundo 720

There are other species like striped maple (pennsylvaticum)
but those above are about all the commercial species found
in the US.

--

FF

On 23 Feb 2005 17:35:38 -0800, "Phil at small (vs at large)"
wrote:

Hard maple will give a "ringing" sound when tapped with a mallet (often
used for violin & mandolin backs / sides for it's sound bouncing
capacity)
Soft maple has more of a "thunk"

I have a guitar with a hard maple body. It has tremendous "punch" to
the sound, easily louder than most guitars, with a very bright, clear
tone. Wish I could find the time to learn to really play it.

--
"We need to make a sacrifice to the gods, find me a young virgin... oh, and bring something to kill"

Tim Douglass

http://www.DouglassClan.com

I've built several guitar & bass necks from stuff that says your
generalization is false.

Here's another one for you: Broad sweeping genralizations are ALWAYS false.

--Steve

wrote:

If it's got a lot of curly figure, it's soft.

PvR notes:
For the record, and belatedly: yes.
Yes, density, strength and hardness are different things
Yes, hard maple (there is only one species) is appr. 50% harder than
soft maple (at least two species).

"Charlie Self" wrote:
I have long understood that there are two species of hard maple, A.
saccharum and A. nigrum (black maple).

Doug Miller schreef in
Yes, there are. Sort of. A. nigrum is often sold as "hard maple" and it is
in fact a whole lot harder than silver maple (A. saccharinum), sold as "soft
maple", but it's nowhere near as hard as A. saccharum, and isn't all that
much harder than red maple (A. rubrum) which is also sold as "soft maple".

Specifics: (side hardness in lf-ft)
saccharum 1450
nigrum 1180
rubrum 950
saccharinum 700

***
Yes, "sort of" is rather precise. Black maple is a maple that drifts into
and out of /Acer saccharum/, as either a subspecies or variety. If you go
and look for them, you will find supporters for all three positions (/Acer
nigrum/, /Acer saccharum/ subsp /nigrum/ and /Acer saccharum/ var /nigrum/).
I called it one species to 1) make the point that they are not entirely
separate maples and 2) the latest big monograph to deal with all the maples
of the world (i.e. "Maples of the World", 1994) regards the Black Maple as a
subspecies. So, it is on good authority.

And yes, the four biggest units (sugar, black, silver and red maple) are
listed as being of different hardness, so it depends on the way you
calculate how close the "appr. 50% harder" is true. Close enough, I'd say?
The figures given are all averages anyway, not absolute figures that are
very likely to exactly fit the wood one will have at hand (not to mention
that hardness of any given piece of wood will vary with moisture content),
so anything one would care to say is only approximately ...

Yes, "sort of", indeed.
PvR

In article .com, wrote:

Doug Miller wrote:



(with minor editing by FF)

Specifics: (side hardness in lf-ft) (Actually pounds force: lbf)

Oops, typo, sorry. Meant to type "lb-ft". Thought I had. Thanks.

(Sugar) saccharum 1450
(Black) nigrum 1180
(Red) rubrum 950
(Silver) saccharinum 700


Also:

(Bigleaf) macrophyllum 833
My source shows 850, FWIW.

(Boxelder) negundo 720

There are other species like striped maple (pennsylvaticum)
but those above are about all the commercial species found
in the US.

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

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:00:15 -0800, Steve Steve wrote:

Broad sweeping genralizations are ALWAYS false.



B.b.b..b....but.......


HEY!

you cut that out.

Doug Miller wrote:
In article .com,
wrote:

Doug Miller wrote:



(with minor editing by FF)

Specifics: (side hardness in lf-ft) (Actually pounds force: lbf)

Oops, typo, sorry. Meant to type "lb-ft". Thought I had. Thanks.

But "lb-ft" are the wrong units. Pound-feet or foot-pounds, are
units of energy or moment or vice versa, there is a convention for
the ordering of the factors, evidently preferred by professors of
engineering who are weak on the concept of the communitive
property of multiplication. Sometimes you will also see lbf-ft
or ft-lbf. In civil engineering "Geodesics" may be defined as lines
of constant energy. I _think_ that means that the moment supported
by a structure along those lines is constant, implying constant
potential energy. R. Buckminster Fuller could no doubt have
explained it far better.

IMHO "lbf" is silly anyhow as "lb" should be understood
to be force unless otherwise specified since pounds-mass is an
obnoxious unit, slugs are far easier to work with when you need
to use honest-to-god ACU mass units.

(Watch out, a linguist might pop up any minute and start a
discussion of how words used to refer to mass and weight have
evolved over the millenia. It is actually quite interesting.)

Also:

(Bigleaf) macrophyllum 833
My source shows 850, FWIW.

I found some that say that too. Few sources give any sort
of range but I expect that there is considerable natural
variation in the material properties of wood, +/- 10% for
most species would not surprise me.

--

FF

wrote:


But "lb-ft" are the wrong units. Pound-feet or foot-pounds, are
units of energy or moment or vice versa, there is a convention for
the ordering of the factors, evidently preferred by professors of
engineering who are weak on the concept of the communitive
property of multiplication. Sometimes you will also see lbf-ft
or ft-lbf. In civil engineering "Geodesics" may be defined as lines
of constant energy. I _think_ that means that the moment supported
by a structure along those lines is constant, implying constant
potential energy. R. Buckminster Fuller could no doubt have
explained it far better.

IMHO "lbf" is silly anyhow as "lb" should be understood
to be force unless otherwise specified since pounds-mass is an
obnoxious unit, slugs are far easier to work with when you need
to use honest-to-god ACU mass units.

(Watch out, a linguist might pop up any minute and start a
discussion of how words used to refer to mass and weight have
evolved over the millenia. It is actually quite interesting.)

Or, they might ask what the "communitive property of multiplication"
isg.

You are absolutely right, and as a traditionalist, I applaud you. But
I also have to ask if you really enjoy ****ing into the wind like
this? Sometimes right (technically) can be silly (practically).


I found some that say that too. Few sources give any sort
of range but I expect that there is considerable natural
variation in the material properties of wood, +/- 10% for
most species would not surprise me.

I agree. Some indication of variability would be helpful. I wouldn't
be surprised if a 90% confidence interval was even larger than +/-
10%. Not the same thing as tree-to-tree variation, but look at the
variation by water content, where the compression perpendicular to the
grain (in lbf/in^2) varies for sugar maple from 640 (green) to 1,470
(12%MC). (source
http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fp...tr113/ch04.pdf (cited
earlier in the thread), page 4-10)

--
Alex -- Replace "nospam" with "mail" to reply by email. Checked infrequently.

Just got back from a trip and read all this. Geeze. Y'all are much
smarter than me, I only know what I read in Bruce's book. Density,
hardness, perpendicular compression, sounds like a paper Dr. Ruth
wrote. Sounds like if you take the hardest of the hard, sugar, its
half again as hard as the softest of the soft, silver; but the Black
ain't that much harder than the Red, so where does that leave us.
Dunno. Someone (not me) should send the string to Bruce Hoadley for an
expert opinion.

Mutt

Mutt schreef in
Sounds like if you take the hardest of the hard, sugar, its
half again as hard as the softest of the soft, silver;

***
No, on average it is over twice as hard. If you really look, you can likely
find pieces that show a difference of three times.
* * *

Someone (not me) should send the string to Bruce Hoadley for an
expert opinion.

***
So that he can explain again what the past fifty years of explaining has
failed to get across? I don't know Hoadley's temper but probably he will
regret having written the book, as the readers don't understand what it
says?
PvR