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#1
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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 |
#2
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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 |
#3
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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 |
#4
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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? |
#5
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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". |
#6
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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 |
#7
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If it's got a lot of curly figure, it's soft.
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#8
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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? |
#9
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#10
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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 |
#12
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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 |
#13
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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? |
#14
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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? |
#15
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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. |
#16
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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? |
#17
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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 |
#18
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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). |
#19
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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) |
#20
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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? |
#21
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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? |
#22
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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 |
#23
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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 |
#24
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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. |
#25
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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 |
#26
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#27
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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. |
#28
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#30
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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 |
#31
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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 |
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