Soft Tiger Maple / Hard Tiger Maple
- Thread starter Ty G
- Start date
Antiquity
Well-known member
It does not matter which one you use. I have used both maples for carcass and drawer fronts. It all depends what look you want. Hard maple, at least the maple from Wisconsin, can have many different grain patterns. Anywhere from tiger stripes to a molted/bubbly look. If you use hard maple just make sure all of the grain patterns look alike. Don't mix hard and soft in the same piece of furniture. In my opinion the hard curly maple looks prettier than the soft tiger maple.
Dennis Bork
Antiquity Period Designs, Ltd.
Dennis Bork
Antiquity Period Designs, Ltd.
Mark Arnold
Well-known member
Ty,
I agree that hard is preferable for most applications. I've used soft maple for table tops but they tend to "record" every document ever written on them. Curly figure seems to occur more readily in soft maples. I heard somewhere that about 5% of soft maple will yield curly wood, but only 1% of hard maple does. I can't vouch for these figures (pardon the pun) although it seems that quartered soft frequently has some curl to it. The best curl will show on more than one face. Also, there doesn't seem to be any convention on which maple yields tiger vs curly so hopefully others can add their thoughts on this. I've always associated tiger or fiddleback with hard maples and curly with soft. Is this accurate or is tiger just really tight curl?
I agree that hard is preferable for most applications. I've used soft maple for table tops but they tend to "record" every document ever written on them. Curly figure seems to occur more readily in soft maples. I heard somewhere that about 5% of soft maple will yield curly wood, but only 1% of hard maple does. I can't vouch for these figures (pardon the pun) although it seems that quartered soft frequently has some curl to it. The best curl will show on more than one face. Also, there doesn't seem to be any convention on which maple yields tiger vs curly so hopefully others can add their thoughts on this. I've always associated tiger or fiddleback with hard maples and curly with soft. Is this accurate or is tiger just really tight curl?
My "bucket list" includes a number of pieces to be made of figured maple, and I have put aside a substantial quantity of stock as I find it is best bought when available, not when needed.
I have tended toward the most exotic figures, and I woule classify the variations in my stock as follows:
tiger maple - sort of more striped than plain, but not truly curly; sort of 1-D level of figure
Curly - most sought after figure for furniture, very attractive with waviness in 2-D
Quilt - a bubbly look, I call it 3-D figure; prized for guitars and other luthier applications. $100+ board foot price level
Burl - evenmore extreme than Quilt, structural properties seem compromised by discontinuities, almost crumbles
In my experience the hard maple tends to come from the Eastern part of the US, and the soft from the West coast,but not exclusively.
As pretty as the complex figures appear when stained, I am told they are a nightmare to smooth, some say that normal power tools cannot cope and they require extremely sharp cutters and even thickness sanding to finish without tearout.
Karl
I have tended toward the most exotic figures, and I woule classify the variations in my stock as follows:
tiger maple - sort of more striped than plain, but not truly curly; sort of 1-D level of figure
Curly - most sought after figure for furniture, very attractive with waviness in 2-D
Quilt - a bubbly look, I call it 3-D figure; prized for guitars and other luthier applications. $100+ board foot price level
Burl - evenmore extreme than Quilt, structural properties seem compromised by discontinuities, almost crumbles
In my experience the hard maple tends to come from the Eastern part of the US, and the soft from the West coast,but not exclusively.
As pretty as the complex figures appear when stained, I am told they are a nightmare to smooth, some say that normal power tools cannot cope and they require extremely sharp cutters and even thickness sanding to finish without tearout.
Karl
Antiquity
Well-known member
Ty G - both. Furniture mass produced, like D.R. Dimes and other I have seen at the wholesale markets shows, is all soft TM. I'm quessing that most of us use soft TM also because it is more readily available.
Karl - yes, soft TM can be a nightmare to work with. Even razor sharp planer knives will produce tearouts in soft TM. I am just finishing two soft TM pencil post beds. Four of the eight posts had tearouts from the planer. Hand planing all of the surfaces with a "scarry sharp" plane iron elimanated the tearouts or almost all of the tearouts. However, sometimes the sharpest plane iron will instead create more tearouts. Then you have very expensive fire wood (it impresses the neighbors!).
There is just no way to predict if a board will tearout.
Dennis Bork
Karl - yes, soft TM can be a nightmare to work with. Even razor sharp planer knives will produce tearouts in soft TM. I am just finishing two soft TM pencil post beds. Four of the eight posts had tearouts from the planer. Hand planing all of the surfaces with a "scarry sharp" plane iron elimanated the tearouts or almost all of the tearouts. However, sometimes the sharpest plane iron will instead create more tearouts. Then you have very expensive fire wood (it impresses the neighbors!).
There is just no way to predict if a board will tearout.
Dennis Bork
jacon4
Well-known member
I heard somewhere that about 5% of soft maple will yield curly wood, but only 1% of hard maple does.
Yep, thats what this site i have bookmarked says, 2-5% curly on soft & less than 1% on hard. This guy has some gorgeous maple and really good pics of indivdual boards so one can see what they are getting which is kind of important because this sort of lumber is kinda pricy.
http://www.curlymaple.com/hardmpl.shtml
Yep, thats what this site i have bookmarked says, 2-5% curly on soft & less than 1% on hard. This guy has some gorgeous maple and really good pics of indivdual boards so one can see what they are getting which is kind of important because this sort of lumber is kinda pricy.
http://www.curlymaple.com/hardmpl.shtml
Dennis,
I am guessing that the "scary sharp" hand plane has two advantages:
1. It lets you attack a local grain pattern at the best possible angle, whereas a power planer just takes the whole field of grain variation as it comes. I think we all learned at an early stage not to plane "against" the grain of a piece, and hand planing lets you vary this somewhat.
2. A "perfectly" sharp edge lets the user shear off material without creating any bending force on the underlying wood fiber structure; it has seemed to me sometimes even using a lighter plane, and high speed passes lets one gain the advantage of inertia; i.e., the projecting wood gets cut off before it has time to deflect elastically and load up the surface fibers in bending which is what probably causes tearout.
My instinct is that the degree to which a piece of wood can be planed against the grain is a complex function of the cutter speed, sharpening angle, and edge sharpness, grain angle, and some ratio of shear to bending strength of the wood. Because extreme figure is likely to include the most unfavorable grain angle somewhere in the pattern, it is more likely to tear.
Karl
I am guessing that the "scary sharp" hand plane has two advantages:
1. It lets you attack a local grain pattern at the best possible angle, whereas a power planer just takes the whole field of grain variation as it comes. I think we all learned at an early stage not to plane "against" the grain of a piece, and hand planing lets you vary this somewhat.
2. A "perfectly" sharp edge lets the user shear off material without creating any bending force on the underlying wood fiber structure; it has seemed to me sometimes even using a lighter plane, and high speed passes lets one gain the advantage of inertia; i.e., the projecting wood gets cut off before it has time to deflect elastically and load up the surface fibers in bending which is what probably causes tearout.
My instinct is that the degree to which a piece of wood can be planed against the grain is a complex function of the cutter speed, sharpening angle, and edge sharpness, grain angle, and some ratio of shear to bending strength of the wood. Because extreme figure is likely to include the most unfavorable grain angle somewhere in the pattern, it is more likely to tear.
Karl
Jacon4,
I have been told, but have no personal experience, that a spiral headed cutter lessens the occurrence of tearout, but does not eliminate it entirely.
That makes some sense in that the individual cutters are less likely to encounter a "front" of adverse grain simultaneously, but on the othe other hand are just as prone to encounter adverse grain in some locations.
I have purchased a spiral head thickness planer to supplement my traditional bladed one for just this reason, but have not had a chance to try it on extreme grain as yet.
Having said that, from learning from others who have faced this problem more often, I do expect that for things like door panels and drawer fronts, a thickness sander is really the best tool to completely elininate tearout. It seems to me that even micro-tearout - very small scale - is going to lead to distortions of stain retention and hence potentially to a flawed finish.
I expect that Dennis' tactic of varying input angle of each piece will offer some gains if sufficient extra cutting width capacity exists,and there seems to be those who feel that very light cuts are helpful.
My own conslucion is that a spiral cutter is likely to help a lot, but not completely solve the problem.
Karl
I have been told, but have no personal experience, that a spiral headed cutter lessens the occurrence of tearout, but does not eliminate it entirely.
That makes some sense in that the individual cutters are less likely to encounter a "front" of adverse grain simultaneously, but on the othe other hand are just as prone to encounter adverse grain in some locations.
I have purchased a spiral head thickness planer to supplement my traditional bladed one for just this reason, but have not had a chance to try it on extreme grain as yet.
Having said that, from learning from others who have faced this problem more often, I do expect that for things like door panels and drawer fronts, a thickness sander is really the best tool to completely elininate tearout. It seems to me that even micro-tearout - very small scale - is going to lead to distortions of stain retention and hence potentially to a flawed finish.
I expect that Dennis' tactic of varying input angle of each piece will offer some gains if sufficient extra cutting width capacity exists,and there seems to be those who feel that very light cuts are helpful.
My own conslucion is that a spiral cutter is likely to help a lot, but not completely solve the problem.
Karl
Dennis,
Yes, four individual cutting edges.
Let me emphasize that I have not yet tested it on highly figured soft maple, just pointing out that I bought it for that very reason
.
However, prior to purchase, I talked to a number of suppliers who specialize in furnishing high end figured maple, and I am reflecting their specific advice in my comments above.
Karl
Yes, four individual cutting edges.
Let me emphasize that I have not yet tested it on highly figured soft maple, just pointing out that I bought it for that very reason
.
However, prior to purchase, I talked to a number of suppliers who specialize in furnishing high end figured maple, and I am reflecting their specific advice in my comments above.
Karl
Antiquity
Well-known member
Jacon - I bet most SAPFM members do machine their wood. Of course there are some that do not but I believe it is only a few (and maybe none). I have made a few pieces completely with hand tools and no machines at all just to show my customers that it still can be done. It's alot of work. Remember, "time is money".
Karl - let us know how the spiral head works compared to the regular cutting head.
Dennis Bork
Karl - let us know how the spiral head works compared to the regular cutting head.
Dennis Bork
There was recently an article in Popular Woodworking about replacing a planer cutterhead with a shelix cutterhead. I visited the shop shortly after they had installed the cutterhead and got to play with the new planer briefly. We put one of Glen Huey's pieces of crazy figured soft curly maple through the planer and there was no tearout as far as I could see. In addition to the reasons mentioned thus far the blades on a shelix cutterhead are presented at a slight angle to the wood resulting in a shear cut which tends to reduce the amount of tearout in some cases.
Another possible reason for the exceptional cutting performance of the planer could have also been the fact that the cutterhead was brand new and sharp. My planer has a Tersa cutterhead and when the blades are sharp I get similar performance - at least in figured cherry and curly hard maple. In many areas of woodworking "Sharp fixes everything".
Another significant advantage to the shelix cutterhead which has not yet been mentioned is that they are significantly quieter than a normal cutterhead.
-Phil
Another possible reason for the exceptional cutting performance of the planer could have also been the fact that the cutterhead was brand new and sharp. My planer has a Tersa cutterhead and when the blades are sharp I get similar performance - at least in figured cherry and curly hard maple. In many areas of woodworking "Sharp fixes everything".
Another significant advantage to the shelix cutterhead which has not yet been mentioned is that they are significantly quieter than a normal cutterhead.
-Phil
Dennis,
I will report back, but it may be a while as I have taken a sabatical from woodworking to complete a very large and complex Sterling silver dining - table plateau having a nautical theme. The design, investment cast components, machined sheet and tube silver parts and cloisonne decorations are done, but having failed to find an experienced silversith to do the assembly, I have had to undertake to make the graphite jigs and teach myself to hard solder silver.
This could take a while,but no turning back now.
Karl
I will report back, but it may be a while as I have taken a sabatical from woodworking to complete a very large and complex Sterling silver dining - table plateau having a nautical theme. The design, investment cast components, machined sheet and tube silver parts and cloisonne decorations are done, but having failed to find an experienced silversith to do the assembly, I have had to undertake to make the graphite jigs and teach myself to hard solder silver.
This could take a while,but no turning back now.
Karl
Jeff L Headley
Well-known member
Ty, You will find more of a choice of fancy grain in soft maple and it is easier to work with, but either is period appropriate. If this (wood) be for a highboy then I (wood) go for what has the most character from what you have which is most easily available (wooden you?)