Where does tiger quilted maple come from?

[Chris Cockerham]

Hi, I am new to woodworking with hardwoods. I usually only do carpentry type construction or basically anything with wood from the local lumber store. I have been looking around at different wood variations and I can't help but too drool over figured maple. I really like the tiger quilted flamed curly maple. I was wanderwing what type of maple this comes from? I have about 60 acres of woods with mostly silver maple, ash, pin and red oak, hickory, sycamore, black walnut, and red and american elm. There is some hackberry, hard maple, sweetgum, cottonwood, birch and some other oaks too. I think shumard and bur and swamp oak. And also some tuliptrees and very few cherry trees.
I know the walnut is nice, well, atleast I really like walnut! I like elm too and cherry, but there is hardly any at all. Could I get figured maple from silver and the other "hard" maple trees on my property? One day I would like to build me a pole barn using lumber from my woods.
Thanks for any help!
Chris

[Chris Cockerham]

Sorry i meant to also ask what type of wood would be good to build with? I am thinking the ash and oak? It would be for building a pole barn. I am planning building myself a sawmill setup and eventually buying a woodmaster 718 pro pack with the 3-Sided Mill add-on. :D:D:D
Thanks again
Chris

[Dewey Torres]

Chris,


When referring to wood in woodworking you have the tree species, the type of wood, the type of cut, and the figure. (I hope I didn't miss any)

The type of tree species in this case is maple and the figure is tiger maple which is really a type of curl pattern in the wood.

The two types of maple commonly used are soft and hard maple. Tiger maple comes from hard maple.

Type of cut examples: flat sawn, quarter sawn, rift sawn.

[Sonny Edmonds]

From mother tigers of course. :D

If you want to saw for it, get to processing some maple trees when you get set up.
Pretty soon you'll find birds eye maple, wavy maple, tiger striped is just another handle hung on figured wood. Stress while the tree is groaning, injuries, bugs, etc; cause beautiful things to form in woods.
I like to try and carve chunks out of root burl and other burls, but it takes some steel. I've ate up band saw blades in an instant some days. :mad:
Quatersawn woods usually will show real beautiful structure.

I was musing over something that would be nice in a sawmill set-up, I think anyway. Some of the re-saw saws at Grizzly (http://grizzleytools.com/products/16-Dual-Conveyor-Horizontal-Re-Saw-Bandsaw/G0504).
And some 24" planers (http://grizzleytools.com/products/24-Industrial-Planer-w-Spiral-Cutterhead/G9961)to see what you found in that log.
Ewe, eee, ewe, ah, ah, ting-tang wallah wallah bing bang! :)

[Mike Parzych]

Quilted maple comes from Western Bigleaf maple that grows in the northwest primarily. Birdseye maple is a variant of hard maple, and the majority of it comes from northern states, like the Upper Peninsula of MI, the New England states, and upper Minnesota. There seems to be some connection between low, low temperatures and birdseye maple. "On the tree" it's identifiable by a similar birdseye pattern in the bark.

Curly maple can be either hard or soft maple. In fact, soft maple seems to more often have curl figure.

[Frank Drew]

Chris,

I haven't seen, nor do I know all there is to know about, all the figured maples, but tiger stripe and fiddleback and curly (and flame?) are all variations on a theme found mostly in sugar maple (hard maple) in my experience; ditto birds-eye and a couple of other figures.

I tend to think of what's called quilted maple, with a broader, pillowy, but no less showy figuring, as coming from big leaf maple.

Whatever, they can all be absolutely stunning; you can get lost in looking at them, particularly under finish.

[Chris Padilla]

Chris,

My namesake old buddy old pal...you're just going to have to divulge where all this beautiful timber is located!! :) :D

It will be exciting to build your shop along with you if you can start a thread here and post to it.

Yep, I fully agree with you: figured maple is absolutely stunning. I collect it whenever I can: especially birdseye maple. I think you've already gotten a lot of good answers here and may I be the first to say:

Welcome to the Saw Mill Creek!! We hope you hand around to spin a yarn or two! :)

[Joe Chritz]

If I understand correctly some maple species are more prone to having figured grains than others. There are 13 native maple species in North America (I had to look it up :D) and you really can't tell what is inside until you start slicing.

Figured maple is one of my favorites.

Joe

[Thomas S Stockton]

Chris,
Hard maple produces birds eye and curly maple. when it is curly and 1/4 sawn it is sometimes referred to fiddleback maple since it is used for insturment backs. Good fiddleback maple is expensive
The eastern soft maple is where most of the curly maple comes from it isn't really all that soft.
Quilted maple is usually western soft maple and tends to be from Oregon or Washington state. insturment qaulity quilted maple is very pricey. western maple can also be found in the curly version also.
So to answer your question your hard maple and silver maple trees could have some nice figured lumber.
Tom

[Chris Cockerham]

Wow thanks for the replies. I didn't figure I would luck out to get tiger maple. But if I get any type of figuring that would be amazing. I am located in southern Indiana. About 50 Miles north of the Kentucky Border and 30 Miles from Illinois. The reason I am asking questions is that I would like to build a shop to rough cut and dry a few trees from the woods. But also use a couple trees to build the shop with. Would ash and oak be good for that type of thing? And I would also like to get the planer/molder and mill all of the flooring, molding, trim, etc., and even build the interior doors and frames! Also would like to do kitchen cabinets, bedroom suites, dining room set, and other misc. furniture.
But really thanks for the responses! I really like this forum.
Chris

[Mark Rios]

I"m sorry folks but I have to correct you. Tiger quilted maple comes from Africa. They have large rooms with rows and rows of tigers just quilting away on stacks and stacks of maple.


Glad I could help.

[John Keeton]

I'm sure everyone has their own impression of the differences, if any, in "curly" maple and tiger, and fiddleback. But, in my "neck of the woods", they are all the same - just a matter of degree in the tightness of the "curl." In other words, fiddleback maple is the term usually associated with the tightest of the striped or curly maples. I am sure this is a local thing, though. Anyway you look at it - it is some beautiful stuff!

It does seem to happen in all maples, and obviously other woods as well. I just had a large dead locust tree cut up for firewood, and was amazed to see (after it was too late) that the base of the tree was extremely curly. It burns well!! Seems a shame to throw it in the fire, but by the time I knew it was curly, it was already stacked!

[Jack Briggs]

I agree with John. The terms "flame, curly, tiger or striped", when referring to figured maples, generally are referring to differing amounts of the same type of figure resulting from compression of the wood. It's usually found in trees growing on hillsides and under main heavy branches, where the weight of the branch causes the compression of the wood underneath it.

In the Bigleaf (Western) maples, often times a piece of quilted maple, which is flatsawn, will show a flamed figure on the quartered sides of the board. This may be where the "tiger quilt" came from. I've had many pieces pass through my hands that exhibited this dual figured appearance.

Fiddleback is surely the tightest of the curly figures. Bigleaf maples show the deepest flame of any species, from my observations. Also I see the tightest fiddleback figure in Bigleaf maples.



Cheers,

[Russ Sears]

Hope this isn't a hijack but I'm curious about opinions on the best way for Chris to bring out the beautiful grain pattern. Suppose he was going to use some really special maple to make an object that will sit indoors and not see a lot of abuse; a jewelry box for example. BLO and shellac? Lacquer?

[Joe Spear]

I"m sorry folks but I have to correct you. Tiger quilted maple comes from Africa. They have large rooms with rows and rows of tigers just quilting away on stacks and stacks of maple.


Glad I could help.

Wouldn't it have made more sense economically to set up the quilting operation in Asia where the tigers live instead of shipping them to Africa?

[Frank Drew]

Hope this isn't a hijack but I'm curious about opinions on the best way for Chris to bring out the beautiful grain pattern. Suppose he was going to use some really special maple to make an object that will sit indoors and not see a lot of abuse; a jewelry box for example. BLO and shellac? Lacquer?

Russ, any finish will tend to highlight the figure, with some adding more color than others. But fanatical surface prep followed by the clearest, most transparent finish will perhaps show figured wood to its greatest advantage. I don't see any particular merit to using linseed oil before a film finish, however.

[John Keeton]

Wouldn't it have made more sense economically to set up the quilting operation in Asia where the tigers live instead of shipping them to Africa?
No Joe, the tiger union that has been formed in Asia has run the labor cost up. It was cheaper to transport otherwise unemployable tigers to Africa, and produce from there. It is complicated, but seems to work OK!

[John Keeton]

Russ, any finish will tend to highlight the figure, with some adding more color than others. But fanatical surface prep followed by the clearest, most transparent finish will perhaps show figured wood to its greatest advantage. I don't see any particular merit to using linseed oil before a film finish, however.
And, now, back on topic - sometimes a very light dye on curly maple will really pop the grain. I used to build longrifles, and had a very complicated finishing schedule that darkened the grain considerably, but the final color was beautiful and visible from any distance. However, it is not the look that goes well in furniture.

[David Keller NC]

"The reason I am asking questions is that I would like to build a shop to rough cut and dry a few trees from the woods. But also use a couple trees to build the shop with. Would ash and oak be good for that type of thing? And I would also like to get the planer/molder and mill all of the flooring, molding, trim, etc., and even build the interior doors and frames! Also would like to do kitchen cabinets, bedroom suites, dining room set, and other misc. furniture."

Chris - To answer one of your other questions, yes, oak and ash are superior construction timbers. Most "stick built" construction these days is done with softwoods like Southern Yellow Pine, but that's because SYP doesn't have much furniture potential, it's really cheap and plentiful, and it's very strong.

However, most of the buildings built in the early colonies were built of oak and ash. One of the reasons is that it will rive (split) easily when green, so logs can be processed into big timbers with wedges and an axe.

If you're interested in this kind of thing, you might want to check out Roy Underhill's The Woodwright's Shop books from the local library. One of the early books had a great deal of information on timber-frame buildings.

From the standpoint of getting your wood processed into useable timbers, you might want to consider hiring a guy with a Woodmizer sawmill. There's an index of owners at the Woodmizer site, and a lot of these guys are for hire. Once you have the trees on the ground and bucked into logs, they'll come in and saw it any way you want it for a linear-foot charge. Generally, that charge is quite reasonable, and makes sense unless you wish to purchase a Woodmizer (which are about $15,000 well-equipped with a 30 HP deisel engine and log-handling gear).

Once you've got your wood sawn into useable boards (or squared up into big timbers if you want a timber frame building), you can dry them without having a building to put them in - you just build a solid, level and straight foundation out of cinder blocks and treated lumber, stack the freshly-sawn wood on top with "stickers" (transversely-laid boards between the green boards) in between, top it with a piece of currogated tin, outdoor plywood or fiberglass roofing, and weight it down.

For furniture, it will take about a year for every inch of thickness to air-dry your wood, but for building purposes, you don't have to wait that long. Generally one summer will be enough to get oak timbers seasoned enough to build a timber frame building out of.

[Al Weber]

Curly or tiger maple is found in both soft and hard maple. Here in NH it seems to be found in geographic pockets. It cannot be distinguished from the bark of a tree but once the bark is removed, the curl appears as rows of ridges on the trunk. I and a neighbor have had a logger harvesting our woodlots for the past year to so and he has found a lot of curly maple. Unfortunately, to the commercial logger curly maple is a "defect" with no commercial value. The innovative ones do know its value and locate mills who will properly estimate the value of the logs. I have a manually operated bandsaw mill (RipSaw brand) and have milled a lot of cherry and maple from my property. It is a lot of work but well worth it given the cost of hardwood lumber today.

[Chris Cockerham]

Thanks for all of the responses. So I am seeing that it is just luck of the log as to what kind of figuring I'll get from the maple logs. But to David Kellar, thanks for the answer about ash and oak. I want to build my own sawmill eventually, but may just have an amishman do it for me, and pay him out in his choice of lumber! There are a lot of amish around here and several have sawmill operations, for rough sawn lumber only usually.
And if anyone knows anything about locust trees, I need help to identify. I am not for certain that there are any on the property, but I do know that there are several in the area. Many farmer, mostly amish or really old retired farmers, use black locust for fence posts and or building posts. I would really just like to know if there is any here, but I don't know what to look for. What are some characteristics of them besides the thorns, I can't recall ever seeing thorns on any trees here :(.
Thanks
Chris

[Joe Spear]

No Joe, the tiger union that has been formed in Asia has run the labor cost up. It was cheaper to transport otherwise unemployable tigers to Africa, and produce from there. It is complicated, but seems to work OK!

That makes sense. Wages in India and China have gone up a lot more than in Africa.

[Homer Faucett]

White oak would be my first option for building beams, as it is more weather resistant than the ash.

Locust would work well, too, but will be heavier, and more difficult to find large enough trees for timber framing. I live in Indiana, as well, and we have both Black and Honey Locust around here. Look for bean pods still on the trees in the late fall or now to identify them, or small opposite style pinnate leaves in the spring and summer. The leaves typically are a nice chartreuse first thing in spring. Yes, watch out for the thorns on both varieties of locust. There may be other species of locust here, but black and honey locust are what I see most often.

With regard to fiddleback, curly, or tiger maple, you've gotten plenty of good responses. You won't find quilted maple in the species around here, as it shows up in western big leaf maples. However, it's not just potluck that you find curly figure--they tend to be found in pockets, so if you find one, you'll find multiples. They tend to have "fat rolls" on the outside of the tree as an identifier. If you do some looking, you will find that there is some genetic predisposition in some trees to produce this figure. A professor from Purdue recently was awarded a patent for a process of producing poplars with curly figure.

Have fun!


Thanks for all of the responses. So I am seeing that it is just luck of the log as to what kind of figuring I'll get from the maple logs. But to David Kellar, thanks for the answer about ash and oak. I want to build my own sawmill eventually, but may just have an amishman do it for me, and pay him out in his choice of lumber! There are a lot of amish around here and several have sawmill operations, for rough sawn lumber only usually.
And if anyone knows anything about locust trees, I need help to identify. I am not for certain that there are any on the property, but I do know that there are several in the area. Many farmer, mostly amish or really old retired farmers, use black locust for fence posts and or building posts. I would really just like to know if there is any here, but I don't know what to look for. What are some characteristics of them besides the thorns, I can't recall ever seeing thorns on any trees here :(.
Thanks
Chris

[Kevin Lucas]

Hmmm lots of big old oak beams... I had a friend build a small building out of "green" oak (they had allergies) and after it cured and out gassed(?) it looked great. I also helped rewire an old house that was oak and still pretty rough sawn wall studs. I'd guess 40 to 80 year old house and you couldn't put nails in it. I killed a drill trying to make places for the wire to go through. The house had settled oddly and the addition that had been added looked bad but the rest was solid and was a huge 2 story.

If you have the oak and friendly sawyer near you I would go for it. You'll get a good solid shop and they will get the lunber they want a very sweet deal )

[Carlos Alden]

Hope this isn't a hijack but I'm curious about opinions on the best way for Chris to bring out the beautiful grain pattern. Suppose he was going to use some really special maple to make an object that will sit indoors and not see a lot of abuse; a jewelry box for example. BLO and shellac? Lacquer?

I built a mandolin several years ago with maple back and sides. I stained with alcohol based dyes. I used dark tones, thinned, to get the effect I wanted, but one could use much lighter dyes. I then sealed with a wash coat of shellac to get some more warmth. Here is a less-than-great picture of a section of it. I used nitro lacquer, several coats and sanded between each one then buffed out, but one could easily use shellac to get that high gloss, which makes it really pop.

http://eaglelake1.org/carlos/mando%20pics%20new/heel.jpg

more pics at
http://eaglelake1.org/mando_finis.html

Carlos

[Al Weber]

There is an older article in Fine Woodworking entitled 'How to Pop the Curl in Maple' or something like that and it gives detail on the following general procedure.

1. Apply a very dilute water based stain, allow it to dry and sand off most of the stain which will leave the curl slightly darkened.
2. Apply a more concentrated water based stain and allow it to dry.
3. Apply an oil; either BLO or tung.
4. Apply a top coat.

I've used the procedure and it works well. You have to have some faith though as after staining, you have this ugly muddy looking wood that only takes on character when you apply the oil.

If you go to the FWW website, you can search for the article although you may have to pay to view it either by joining by paying a relatively nominal annual fee or perhaps by a one time payment for the single article. I don't remember how it works any more.

[Russ Sears]

And if anyone knows anything about locust trees, I need help to identify.

Chris, Black locust is what they're using to make fence posts. There's a saying that a stone fence will crumble before a locust fence will rot.
The trees have a very distinctive, deeply ridged bark in which the ridges sort of gently intertwine. Here in south central PA around mid May they're covered with dangling white flower clusters which have an incredibly sweet smell. Unfortunately they don't bloom every year and it seems that it often rains when they bloom. I'm a hobby beekeeper and locust is a tremendous nectar source when we get a good bloom. Try googling Robinia Pseudoacacia and clicking on "images". I'm sure you'll get a good picture of the bark. I rarely see thorns on black locust around here and the seed pods are much smaller than honey locust which, at least in these parts, is usually a human-planted ornamental.

[Chris Cockerham]

For Homer Faucett, I believe I have plenty of figured maple trees. I actually took a walk around the woods today and noticed that a lot of the maple trees had what appeared to donuts scaling the height of the trees. I am guessing these are the fat rolls you speak. Well howdy doody thats alright! I am a happy man today.
Thanks for all the answers and information, this forum is very helpful.
Chris

[John Keeton]

Carlos, that is very close to the color that I achieved on the longrifles - except the process I used (in the 1970's and 80's) was chemically based. I didn't have access to any dyes. Beautiful piece BTW.

[Mark Rios]

Wouldn't it have made more sense economically to set up the quilting operation in Asia where the tigers live instead of shipping them to Africa?



The lion union in Africa has been on strike since the 20's so they imported tigers to work in the maple quilting factories.