Maple Wood Grain Identification

I m working my way alphabetically by botanical name so check out the latest added wood to see where i m at in the queue.

Maple wood grain identification. Some wood species have dramatically different grain patterns from plainsawn to quartersawn surfaces. Grain is generally straight but may be wavy. I m slowly grinding my way through roughly 800 wood species that have still yet to be listed on the site. Ash wood may show a similar pattern but with more complex grain lines that come to a sharp point.

Hickory typically forms consistently straight close grain lines with few curves. When it s freshly cut maple has light creamy color. Has a fine even texture. Width spacing aggregate noded storied.

There are many varieties of soft maple wood though the most common are the striped maple silver maple red maple bigleaf maple and box elder. When you hear maple you might be thinking of the distinctive maple tree or even maple syrup but the wood species of maple is actually sold under two distinct types. Many woodworkers find the unique grain patterns of maple burl particularly appealing. Hard maple can also be seen with curly or quilted grain patterns.

Birdseye maple is a figure found most commonly in hard maple though it s also found less frequently in other species. Porosity arrangement size frequency contents parenchyma. And it s in this complexity. Soft maple and hard maple.

In sharp contrast to the simple anatomy of softwoods the hardwoods of the world exhibit a dazzling array of endgrain patterns and intricate motifs. Look for brown broad grain lines with a flame pattern to identify oak. Soft maple although similar in appearance to hard maple produces lighter wood with more pronounced grain. Hard maple or sugar maple is the most durable of the maple species with a janka value of 1 450 which makes it one of the hardest domestic woods used in furniture making.

Usually the whitest parts of birch will be darker than the whitest parts of maple and birch holds a stain much better than maple which can get splotchy and spotty. Generally straight grained with a consistent texture maple also can have a bird s eye or curly also called fiddle back pattern. By observing the grain patterns many times you can tell how the board was cut from the tree. Maple grain has broad patterns of differing colors with fewer sharp edges than oak or ash.

For instance on their quartersawn surfaces lacewood has large lace patterns oak has flecks and maple has the characteristic butcher block. For instance red maple overlaps with both black and hard maple in its density range so weight alone can t be used to identify the wood especially if only one or two small samples are weighed also the density is given for wood that is at 12 moisture content.