Cursed maple . . .

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

213156

Grabbed a short of maple really cheap at the lumberyard, to make a chop for my end vise. Sizing it, it was bit tough sawing, but nothing out of the ordinary for dealing with maple, and my rip saw wasn't as coarse as would be ideal for the cuts.

The faces were flat enough from the mill so I started with jointing the edges, cleaning up the slight mismatch where my glue job (I laminated a couple pieces) hadn't been perfect.

The first edge was quick going (it's about 3 inches thick, but only 14 or so long.) Flipped it over to get the other. Swipe, swipe, looking good, then . . . nothing. At first it felt like something was wrong with my plane, maybe a jammed shaving or something. But no, everything is fine. Took the iron out, and it was dull. Seemed like that was a little quick from nothing to dull, but fair enough, I probably should have sharpened it before I started work - I had been doing a lot of work on maple lately.

Sharpened it up, and sure enough, the iron dulls really quick again. This is an 01 Lee Valley replacement iron. It's never seen a grinder though, and has never given me any problems, even after flattening both sides of my maple benchtop.

But this one darn piece of maple - I've sharpened three times now, just trying to finesse this one edge. The last time, I got about a half dozen swipes before it needed honing again. On the off chance it was my plane, I tried it out on some scrap red oak, and nope, no problems at all. So I switched to my Jack plane, with an A2 iron. Got a little bit further - but still dulled VERY quickly.

It's that darker part of the wood in the near corner. The part that I though looked kind of attractive so I figured I'd make it the part of the chop that shows. Jointing this one edge, as soon as I hit that part of the wood, it kills the blade. I don't know what it is about this dark spot, but it's mocking me. I still don't have this piece cleaned up like I'd like.

It's funny too - the edge ends up too dull finish work, but for a while I can actually still plane other woods, or the left edge of this piece. But anything other than razor sharp, and can't work this edge. You just feel that scraping sound and it refuses to bite.

EDIT:
Sorry, don't know why I posted this - just venting, I guess. I just spent way too long planing and sharpening, planing and sharpening, on what should have been a 10 minute job, tops. And I'm still not thrilled with it. I'm cranky.

[Bill Moser]

I feel for you. I've encountered this kind of maple too. There's "hard maple", and then there's the stuff that makes you think that you forgot how to sharpen a blade.

[Steve Elliott]

I've had the same experience with hard maple. I've been planing maple for thirty years and this one chunk was beyond anything I'd ever seen. I was using an infill plane and a freshly sharpened CPM 3V blade. The first stroke made me think I must have put the blade in the plane upside down, but everything was set right. A Lee Valley bevel-up smoother didn't fare any better and at that point I decided that if I had to use wood like that I'd give up on planes. I gave up on that piece of maple instead.

[David Weaver]

What do you think is in it? Maple is all over the board planing, but I haven't had something like that happen yet. What does the edge look like, does it look purely like wear, or does it look like a bunch of tiny chips like you'd get with silica?

I've had cocobolo like that, and other cocobolo that will plane for a pretty decent fraction of the time that a "normal" hardwood would plane. The stuff that's really rough on an iron, though, has glinty bits of silica in it. The edge will last a bit longer if a back bevel is added, but it will still not last long.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

The edge doesn't seem like it's being worn by silica, although I'd have to check with a loupe or something to be certain of that - if I let it go a few strokes too far, it makes a tiny burr on the back edge of the blade. No apparent chipping though. I mean, I've planed rosewoods, cocobolo, ebony, wenge - nothing I've played with has every been this annoying. I've been working with a lot of maple lately on this bench, but never dealt with something like this. I'm really starting to hate maple.

I'm about ready to give up on this wood, as well - if I had caught this issue earlier in the process, I'd wouldn't have even started with it. I already crosscut two pieces, ripped two pieces, resawed one, and laminated them - I feel like I've gone far enough part of me just wants to conquer the damn thing. The original plan was to have the piece oriented like in that picture, with the dark spot on the upper right visible part of the chop. I think if I give up on that plan, and flip around, the annoying edge is squared up enough for the underside of the chop, and the vise body will hide the tearout I'd need to plane away on the "hard" side, which is otherwise flat enough to mount to the vise. Then I can square up the chop face and the easier to work with edge.

[David Weaver]

Increase the total angle of the iron with a back bevel so that instead of being 25-35 degrees, it's something more like 45 degrees. It should make a big difference in the edge turning on you, even though it'll be a bit harder to plane.

I would imagine the burr isn't from blunting in terms of bulldozing and bending, but because something in the wood is abrading the edge like a stone would (you never know what a tree could suck up), but a stronger more full angle at the edge should still mitigate that some. if it doesn't work, then I would do what you said in paragraph 2 - throw it out.

[Jim Koepke]

If it wears blades so fast, I wonder if it could be used to hone blades or as a strop.

jtk

[george wilson]

That sure looks like poplar,unless the picture's color is just off.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Sorry - pictures color is a little wacky - it was late at night. I took two pictures, one with flash, one without - the one with flash made the colors of most of the wood look a little more true to life, but something about the flash washed some of the deeper colors, making it hard to see the different area I was talking about with the darker color on it, which is the part that's dulling the edges.

I just went back to working a bit of poplar for another project - after working with so much maple on this bench project ( honestly, I wish I hadn't sold my router - make the recess for the rear vise chop, and leveling the end grain of the maple has been killer), and then dealing with this recalcitrant piece of wood, working with poplar makes me feel like hercules.

[Jim Neeley]

Well Joshua... it sounds like you "Gawt a peace uf *Rawk* Maple!" :eek: :eek: :eek:

If all else fails at mastering that piece of wood, you can always master its a** into the wood stove! <g>

Jim

[Chris Griggs]

If it wears blades so fast, I wonder if it could be used to hone blades or as a strop.

jtk

Maybe Stu can tell us what the grit/micron rating on that piece of maple is;)

[Tony Shea]

I've encountered similar issues with some heartwood in rock maple. Something about the darker heartwood patch is sometimes extremely dense. My experience was as bad as yours but not all that fun. If possible see about planing across the grain a bit, more diagonal than across. Can be tougher to get a nice true edge and shiny maple surface but think cutting across the grain might be a tad easier.