Lumber aisle at Lowes and Home Depot.

[Clarence Martin]

What's up with the Hardwood lumber section of Lowes and Home Depot ? Have things changed or is it just my luck that the Hard Maple they are stocking now seems to have a lot of CURLY MAPLE in the lumber racks !!??


STEALTH WOOD GLOAT!!!!:D

[Rod Sheridan]

You must be in the USA, poor selection of wood if the only curly species you can find is maple.

Here in The Great White North, Lowes and Home Depot sell curly oak, maple, poplar, pine, spruce, fir etc., and plywood of all descriptions.

All of them curly, and all at bargoon prices.................LOL........................ Rod.

[johnny means]

My local borgs only sell plain old maple and red oak and it's priced at, literally, five times what I consider high prices. Not to mention that they only carry shorts and skinnies.

[Joe Angrisani]

Don't worry Rod. At least one of us got it....

[Jeff Monson]

It rates a dismal 2nd to the curly pine that I can get at my Menards.

[Victor Robinson]

Things are definitely improving. They are my go-to for curved panel work as well.

[Todd Burch]

HA!! Come to Texas. Your choices are clear radiata pine, a low grade of #2 pine, poplar, red oak, rough cedar, and a tiny bit of yellow pine. No maple, EVER. And, it's quite common for the wider red oak and poplar boards to be laminated narrow strips to make up the width.

Over the last 20 years, I have picked up about 5-6 curly red oak boards. If you look at the radiata pine wrong, you dent it.

I called HD corporate a few years back after I had travelled to another city and visited a HD there. At the other city (don't remember where), the #2 pine was AWESOME. HD corporate said "Houston was a different market from the <other> city", which means we got the duds of the #2 and the other city got the creme of the crop. Lucky us.

Todd

[Paul Incognito]

I generally get all my sled runners and toboggan wood from the HD and Lowe's.
PI

[glenn bradley]

I would buy it all. My BORGs only stock junk.

[Troy Turner]

HA!! Come to Texas. Your choices are clear radiata pine, a low grade of #2 pine, poplar, red oak, rough cedar, and a tiny bit of yellow pine. No maple, EVER. And, it's quite common for the wider red oak and poplar boards to be laminated narrow strips to make up the width.
Todd

Ok, I thought it was just me that noticed the BORGs down here DON'T STOCK MAPLE...We have a lumber yard in town, and I can get some Ash, Alder, Birch and I think maple.

[Joe Spear]

My kitchen table is made out of curly maple I got at Lowes. There are always a few curly boards in the maple pile at whatever Lowes I go to around here (north of Boston). One time I even got a 10-foot board 8 inches wide. At the $6/board foot cost of their maple, it isn't that bad a price. A lot of it has that dark color in the boards, but I happen to like that.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

You got nothing on us. Try being out in the middle of the ocean. I consider myself lucky if I find a cheap straight pine 2x4.

BTW what is curly maple? lol Every now and then we get oak. I would love to have some regular maple.

[Joe Leigh]

What's up with the Hardwood lumber section of Lowes and Home Depot ? Have things changed or is it just my luck that the Hard Maple they are stocking now seems to have a lot of CURLY MAPLE in the lumber racks !!??


STEALTH WOOD GLOAT!!!!:D

After scouring the racks for Curly Maple, I go to the register and (with a bewildered look on my face) ask if this obviously "defective" lumber might be available at a discount. The answer is invariably yes....I have a full rack of 1/2" and 3/4" heavily figured S4S Curly Maple in my shop...

[Todd Burch]

After scouring the racks for Curly Maple, I go to the register and (with a bewildered look on my face) ask if this obviously "defective" lumber might be available at a discount. The answer is invariably yes....I have a full rack of 1/2" and 3/4" heavily figured S4S Curly Maple in my shop...

You trickster!!! DAWGG!!

[Mel Fulks]

I was in there a few days ago and a pc of door trim caught my eye because it was narrow and glued up out or two long pcs rather than being finger jointed .Badly matched. Looking at it more closely I saw it was made of plastic with a picture of wood on the front. So the next time your in a restaurant and see a fly ......don't worry, maybe it's plastic.

[Joe Scharle]

Hard curly maple?

[Joe Spear]

Hard curly maple?

There is such a thing, but it's rarer than curly soft maple, which is what the Lowes stores have.

[Joe Scharle]

I looked it up, and you are correct Joe. Here in the Carolinas soft maple is readily available, and of course so is soft curly maple. Not having much use for hard maple anyway, I have never seen it personally. I do hate a day to go by without learning something. Thanks.

[Dave Zellers]

How would one tell the difference between hard and soft maple?

[Mel Fulks]

Hard maple tends to be whiter and that is the thing that makes it cost more.On small white pcs of hard and soft maples it would be hard to tell the difference. The hardness difference is slight.

[Rod Sheridan]

Don't worry Rod. At least one of us got it....I was losing faith there for awhile Joe............LOL

[Kevin Bourque]

I cringe whenever I walk past the poplar boards at Homies. Its somewhere around $6 a board foot for the stuff!!!

[Ryan Baker]

No maple around here either, and there certainly is plenty growing in the state. They used to have a pathetic, small assortment of maple scrap. Now it is completely gone. There is some red oak (usually pretty bad stuff though), and some poplar (both very overpriced). On a lucky day, you might find a bit of rough cedar 1X? (i.e. fence boards). Of course, there is some pine of sorts around too, but I have pretty much no use for that. The closest wood supplier is an hour and a half away.

[Todd Burch]

Yes, the poplar and oak are outrageous. The couple times I have had (*had*) to buy @ HD, (like when I saw the 1X10 curly red oak boards) I leveraged their price match guarantee at the register. Slow and painful, but effective.

[Kevin Bourque]

There is/was a chain of stores around here called 84 Lumber. It was a pretty lousy place in general, but their selection of #2 pine was amazing. I used to pick through the stuff and find 1x12x16s that were straight grained and clear with the exception of a knot or two. I would routinely go down to their store and buy 5-10 boards just for the hell of it.

[Dick Mahany]

Just like Rod, but further south and west...........we have curly pine at our big box stores. I bought some 2X4s today.......by the time I got rid of that awful curl, I was down to 1x3 :D:D;)

[Todd Burch]

OK, I get it now. Funny. Curly plywood here too.

[Zach Callum]

Hard maple tends to be whiter and that is the thing that makes it cost more.On small white pcs of hard and soft maples it would be hard to tell the difference. The hardness difference is slight.

Janka Scale:

Hard Maple=1450
Soft Maple=950

[Mel Fulks]

Zach, Thanks, I should have said "If you are useing it for something (as opposed to checking it with Janka scale )the hardness difference is slight. Anybody want to sell a Janka scale? I prefer one that reads in English ,as the Metric system is currently being renovated.

[Zach Callum]

Soft maple is about the same in hardness as cherry. There is a reason that the terms Hard, and Soft are used. There is a difference, and it is not as slight as you suggest.

[Mel Fulks]

I didn't indicate a degree of "slight " ,checked for a SLIGHT METER TEST on ebay but I didn't see any premium brand models.I will keep looking . Thanks!

[Chris Fournier]

Hard vs soft maple is no slight difference. Check out the specific gravity of the two woods 0.71 vs 0.54. Hard maple is not always whiter than soft maple either. If you are lucky enough to have some bark on the lumber you will see that hard maple is orange in colour where the bark meet the wood and soft maple is sort of purple in this region. There are several great books out there to help woodworkers identify various woods - World Woods in Colour is one of them. I believe that the author is William Lincoln.

[Zach Callum]

So, you must have meant, slight, as in, huge difference between the two?

[Matthew Hills]

There are several great books out there to help woodworkers identify various woods - World Woods in Colour is one of them.

Another useful site (assuming your monitor is reasonably color-correct): http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/

Matt

[Craig D Peltier]

Haha Like.

Things are definitely improving. They are my go-to for curved panel work as well.

[Russell Johnson]

I was at Lowes the other day and they had lots of Maple some of it curly. All S4S. Totally new thing here in Austin area.

[Philip Duffy]

make that 2. Phil

[Joe Spear]

I was at Lowes the other day and they had lots of Maple some of it curly. All S4S. Totally new thing here in Austin area.

We've been lucky in Massachusetts to have had that situation for years.