Maple - Curly Soft vs. Curly Hard

[Julie Moriarty]

What's the difference?

[Don Jarvie]

The soft is darker than the hard maple. The soft will also take stain a little better so nice the pores are not as tight. I have made a few bowls out of CSM and they came out nice.

[Andrew Joiner]

I made a table top out of sapele. 1/3rd of the top is quilted soft maple. It's 7 years old, finished with 5 coats of wipe on poly. It looks OK but normal wear and tear shows uniform tiny scratches and loss of gloss on both the maple and sapele.

However, the maple portion has deep indentations, not scratches in a uniform X pattern. My grandkids do drawings in that area. I tested and sure enough the pressure of a ball point pen on paper transfers thru. It makes indentations on the maple not the sapele. Sapele and hard maple are nearly twice as hard as soft maple on the janka scale.

That said everyone loves the table. I don't think hard maple would ever produce the depth of quilt figure this slab did. It's top is sawn veneer so I can sand and refinish it many times.

[Carl Beckett]

I have used a lot of hard maple and really like the finished product. Also have used soft maple.

Working with hard maple requires sharp tools and will wear bits. You can make very precise cuts/joinery, but your sharpening skill will be tested.

Soft maple is much easier to machine.

If any of that matters. I enjoy working with hard maple but just have to remind myself to be more patient.

[glenn bradley]

I use the variety of soft maple species interchangeably with hard maple wen using it as a secondary wood. I choose on price as they will each be more or less based on some voodoo around here. when I am after a curly product, I choose based on appearance and desired appearance. Soft curly can be anything from light blond to warm cherry in color. Hard maple is white to soft yellow.

[Yonak Hawkins]

Andrew, thank you for this account of your personal experience. I have wondered about the wearability of soft vs. hard maple in well used furniture over time.

[Andrew Seemann]

This may or may not be important for what you are doing, but soft maple is much more stable than hard maple. If both soft or hard will work for the application, I go for soft maple because it is much nicer to work and doesn't move around service as much as hard. And it tends to have a nicer figure. I typically only use hard maple if I specifically need the hardness and/or the strength or clean cut ends. Hard maple does cross cut better than.

I've got a table just about finished of paint-grade soft maple with really nice curl and figure. I'll post a picture when I get it in the house later.

[Richard Coers]

https://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/differences-between-hard-maple-and-soft-maple/
Special consideration should be given to exactly what species you are buying. As stated in the article, soft maple can be any of the following species so color and machinability can widely vary;

Bigleaf Maple (Acer macrophyllum) (https://www.wood-database.com/bigleaf-maple/)
Box Elder (Acer negundo) (https://www.wood-database.com/box-elder/)
Red Maple (Acer rubrum) (https://www.wood-database.com/red-maple/)
Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum) (https://www.wood-database.com/silver-maple/)
Striped Maple (Acer pensylvanicum (https://www.wood-database.com/striped-maple/))

[Peter Christensen]

I'll remove my post since the link was just reposted.

[Mike Hollingsworth]

It's my experience that the really curly stuff (tiger maple) is the soft kind. I look forward to the more knowledgeable experts confirming this (or not).

[Andrew Seemann]

Table in soft maple completed about an hour ago. No idea on what the species is, other than I know it isn't boxelder or silver maple, both of which I am familiar with. Chock full of figure, curl, and chatoyance, although it doesn't show well in the picture. This soft maple was darker than some I have used in the past, like on the tool cabinet below. I think that is was mostly heartwood.

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[Richard Coers]

It's my experience that the really curly stuff (tiger maple) is the soft kind. I look forward to the more knowledgeable experts confirming this (or not).

Not true, there are never any hard and fast rules when the material comes from nature. The term fiddleback, used to describe instrument grade curly maple or even used just to describe very tight curly maple, is always hard maple. Soft maple has no tonal qualities and isn't used in instruments.

[Andrew Seemann]

Not true, there are never any hard and fast rules when the material comes from nature. The term fiddleback, used to describe instrument grade curly maple or even used just to describe very tight curly maple, is always hard maple. Soft maple has no tonal qualities and isn't used in instruments.

And there aren't any hard and fast rules about instruments either:) Soft maple is used for the bodies of some guitars, and I've heard of it being used in harpsichords as well for various parts including the wrestplank. I used it for bracing and lining the below instrument. I would agree that it probably isn't used for violin bodies, likely because it doesn't have the tonal qualities for that application, not because it has no tonal qualities. There are likely other applications in instrument building as well. It is lightweight and fairly resonant, which make it good for certain applications.


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[Julie Moriarty]

Thank you for all the responses. Now I can say I know at least something about the difference between hard and soft maple. When walking the isles of my local hardwood store I have always chosen maple for aesthetic reasons, for whatever application I intend to use it. I assume all that maple was hard maple but really, I can't say I know for sure.

[Andrew Joiner]

Andrew, thank you for this account of your personal experience. I have wondered about the wearability of soft vs. hard maple in well used furniture over time.
Your welcome.