Maple by the Piece

The classic American blonde, Hard Maple features creamy white sapwood with a reddish cast, and rugged durability. The wood has an exceptionally fine, even texture, and tight pores that yield an excellent finished surface. These thin boards are machined S4S to 1/8" and 1/4" thicknesses, eliminating wear and tear on your planer. You won’t have to worry about chipout, which is difficult to prevent when planing thin stock. Thin boards are ideal for edging, veneering, inlay, marquetry, sides for decorative boxes, bending stock, bent laminations and whatever else your imagination can dream up!

• Tree: May reach a height of 70 to 120 feet, with a 24 to 36 inch diameter trunk.
• Sapwood Color: White with a reddish cast.
• Heartwood Color: Uniformly pale reddish brown or light tan.
• Grain: Usually fairly straight, but can also be curly or wavy. Sometimes exhibits decorative figuring like bird's eye, maple burl, blister, leaf, and fiddleback.
• Texture: Very fine and even.
• Working properties: Due to hardness, tools must be kept very sharp.
• Carving: Responds well to carving tools.
• Steam bending properties: Fair.
• Strength Properties: Very high bending strength. Resistance to compression parallel to the grain is high. Hardness is rated as medium. It is heavy, and resists denting and marring. Hard Maple can be up to 25 percent harder than Soft Maple.