I have written about Maple on multiple occasions, but always in reference to a specific figure, such as Bird’e Eye, or in reference to specific insect damage, Ambrosia Maple, that adds interest to what can otherwise be a fairly plain wood.
Ambrosia Maple
I covered all the usual ground when I wrote about Bird’s Eye figure so I won’t repeat it here.
Bird’s Eye Maple
However, I noticed that what I didn’t address is some of the confusion around the generic term “maple” and the other possible woods that might be referred to by that name.
I believe I will always have a fondness for Maple as a turning material because it was the material out of which I turned my first attempt at a bowl. It was more of a dish, or perhaps even a frisbee-type saucer but it was the beginning of a much enjoyed hobby. My attention has recently returned to Maple because it was one of the two woods used to make a segmented bowl blank that I recently turned, about which I will post later, and because I am making a group of four bowls from Box Elder, about which I will also post later, which, despite the name, is actually a type of Maple in that the Box Elder tree is within the Acer genus, the botanically correct term for Maple.
In general, wood workers and retailers will divide Maple into two broad groups: Hard Maple and Soft Maple.
Most all the time when a wood is referred to, or sold as, Hard Maple it will in fact be Acer saccharum, the sugar maple from which most, but not all, maple syrup is tapped. Very occasionally, a very closely related species, Acer nigrum, may also be called Hard Maple. In fact, some experts believe that Acer nigrum is not a separate species at all, but rather a subspecies within the broader Acer saccharum species, which would be therefore known as Acer saccharum subsp. nigrum.
Curly Hard Maple Yo-Yo
Soft Maple, on the other hand, might be one of several different species of Acer. The species most commonly referred to as Soft Maple can include:
Acer macrophyllum (Bigleaf Maple)
Acer negundo (Box Elder)
Acer rubrum (Red Maple)
Acer saccharinum (Silver Maple)
Acer pensylvanicum (Striped Maple)
As is often the case with domestic woods, where you buy the wood being sold as Soft Maple can heavily influence what species you are actually getting and using. For example, in the western United States, Soft Maple is most likely to be Acer macrophyllum, but in the eastern United States Soft Maple is much more likely to be either Acer rubrum or Acer saccharinum. It also tends to be the case that those who commonly work with these woods will assert the relative superiority of the wood they are most regionally familiar with. So, an Oregonian wood worker is likely to claim that Bigleaf Maple is far superior to that eastern stuff.
Large Slab of Big Leaf Maple
There are two other Acer species that one might encounter and those are: Acer campestre (Field Maple), Acer platanoides (Norway Maple) and Acer pseudoplatanus (Sycamore Maple). All three of these Acer species are native to Europe and to some extent far western Asia. This makes it unlikely that a wood worker in the United States would commonly encounter these species, but some of these species have been occasionally planted in the United States as decorative trees and it is therefore possible that wood from removed trees might come on a local market. But, this isn’t a highly likely scenario. While none of these species are quite as hard, as determined by the Janka test and scale, they all are on the upper end and would likely be considered contenders for Hard Maple status.
Within the Soft Maple group that one is likely to encounter in the United States, the order of hardness stacks up as follows, from lowest to highest:
Acer saccharinum (Silver Maple)
Acer negundo (Box Elder)
Acer pensylvanicum (Striped Maple)
Acer macrophyllum (Bigleaf Maple)
Acer rubrum (Red Maple)
Now, to be sure, the differences amongst these five are not incredibly large at all. The difference between the two extremes is only 250 pounds per square inch which really isn’t a huge amount at all on the Janka scale.
So, the big question is, does it matter which species I use? Probably not, depending on what you are using the wood for. Consider that the difference between the hardest of the Soft Maples and Hard Maple is all of 500 pounds per square inch, which while clearly noticeable isn’t usually a difference that will seriously affect performance, again, depending on the purpose the wood is to be put to. The most signigcant and common uses for Maple in which the wood worker would likely want to be sure to use Hard Maple are those uses in which hardness and strength are essential, such as when making butcher blocks, flooring, workbench tops, or other high and hard use applications. For most every other common use of maple, just about any species will do just fine and they most all look quite similar.
In addition, the softer maples can actually some advantages over the hard maples. The softer woods are much less likely to dull tools and are not as likely to burn during operations such as when using a router. However, that said, it is also my experience that is much more difficult to achieve a fine surface finish on the softer maples because the softer wood is likely to cut with a fuzzy edge that requires more sanding to remove than what normally occurs with a harder maple. But, it is also true that a soft wood sands quickly and easily, so that problem is also easily solved.
The softer maples are softer because they grow about half as fast as harder maples. This difference in growth rates also helps account for the price differences between the hard and soft maples. The wood that takes longer to reach mature usable size is simply going to be more expensive. If only for reasons of economy, using a softer maple when you can might be a wise choice.
Ultimately, I suspect that most wood workers would not readily be able to tell one species from another in the absence of labeling, pricing, or trying to work with the wood. Based just on appearance alone, which is in many cases the ultimate arbiter of which wood to use, most all Acer species are relatively indistinguishable.
As is so often true when working with different woods, the best way to know which wood you prefer is to try the different options and determine for yourself which best meets the particular need you have at a particular time. Being open to the possibility that you might discover that you enjoy working with a wood you didn’t think you would can go a long way towards helping a wood worker to discover a new favorite material.
If, despite everything I have said above, you are determined to be able to distinguish between the different types of Maple, try using the methods listed on The Wood Database.