Craigs list maple section. What am I seeing here?

[Larry Rasmussen]

Hello Creekers,
I just happy to be home today and after selling a tool on Craigs I stopped by the materials section and lo and behold there is an ad for a maple tree not far down the road for $150. With luck you will see a cross section below which is described like this: Approximately 9ft long, and 3-4ft in diameter (at the widest point). From the side photo it appears to be pretty straight and not many limbs.

I work with western maple a fair amount but am not used to tree view. I am thinking I'm looking at a small area of desirable sapwood and a whole bunch of undesirable heartwood in the middle.

Any comments about what this is or whether it would be worth working with, If I'm right it doesn't seem worth the trouble. I'm thinking I'll go get a round from them and split off edge pieces to dry for fun. I'm in Seattle so Western Maple I guess. There are a fair amount of ads for timber but usually way out on the islands or in the boonies.

Thanks,
Larry Rasmussen

[David Helm]

If you've got a way to mill it I'd say go for it. I use a lot of Western Big Leaf Maple, primarily live edge slabs. What you have there is a find. . . . and it's the heartwood you're after, not the sapwood. Many of my kitchen counters are live edge maple. Beautiful figure and long wearing. You want to get someone who knows what they are doing in the milling so they find the figure!

[Larry Rasmussen]

I have bought a couple of expensive figured pieces at Curly Maple dot com and am on the maililng list. I enjoy looking through at the latest lists when sent. The typical description focuses on how much sapwood there is, here's one:

"Sapwood two face except for a short tailing of some heartwood on each end of the material on one face only. Surfaced four sides and loaded with excellent figure!"

I also just bought a 100' of hard maple recently and the focus was on how much light wood was on them- another Craig's list ad. I always kind of figured that the heartwood area was small and not useful for furniture making, the tree and then your post suprised me. I don't recall seeing any all heartwood pieces in my limited travels.

Thanks again,
Larry