Soft Tiger Maple / Hard Tiger Maple

I agree with Jeff. Finding the boards with the figure and widths you want is hard enough. I have never worried much about what was period appropriate, and it's pretty hard to tell once a piece has been assembled and finished whether or not it's hard or soft.

Some folks claim the nomenclature for figured maple is set in stone, but most people (myself included) are never quite sure what others mean. I consider fiddleback to be the figure with the very tightest, densest curly figure, followed by tiger, with pretty dense curl, and then curly, which is . . . curly. I've never used other varieties, but usually just consider the more mottled figure to be quilted.

As someone else pointed out, some maple, particularly 12/4 for legs and turnings, has nice figure on the quartersawn sides, and much less on the flatsawn faces.
 
Yep, I am going with Jeff & John on this one. I own several pieces of period tiger, curly, figured, whatever you wanna call it maple and if my life depended on it,  I could not tell you if it was hard or soft maple.
 
I'm a wee bit late on this thread but I wanted to add two cents.  I work for a large hardwood lumber wholesaler named J. Gibson McIlvain.  I can attest to the greater percentage of figure in Soft Maple over Hard just based on the stock we have in the yard now.  We do a significant amount of dressing and moulding of tiger maple too for custom millwork houses and period furniture makers.  I went and talked to our millwork boss and he has 2 planers specifically set up for figured maple.  They are both spiral cutters and they only use them for the last 1 or 2 passes.  Other machines are used for the heavy lifting work thus keeping the "finishing" planers away from the heavy wear and tear.  Of course this is only helpful for those of you that have multiple planers.  My millwork boss can be quoted as saying that "spiral heads have made my job so much easier"
 
I put byrd heads on my planer and 1 of my jointers a few years back. All I use are high figured woods. Best money I ever spent. They cut figured wood better then anything. I have run both hard and soft curtly maple, birdseye, flame birch, curly cherry and flame beech. All have no issue .

As far as the hard or soft curly, I can find 20 times as much soft curly as hard. At least here in Wisconsin and the UP. I buy and sell a lot of wood, and have much better luck finding soft curly maple.

bob
 
A quick google, complete with video

http://www.holbren.com/spiral-cutterhead/?&gclid=CMO_pMn-5akCFdcN2godJllPbQ
 
I bought mine right from Byrd Tool company
http://www.byrdtool.com/

Brian Holbren sells them also. From what I know, Brian is a stand up guy to work with. He can get you the heads cheaper then going to Byrd itself.
Hope that helps. bob
 
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