Mixing hard and soft maple?

[Alex Zeller]

Finding time to get in the shop has been a challenge this summer but I've decided to push myself into finding time by setting a deadline. So I've decided to make a few jewelry type boxes out of hard maple. The design is for the face and sides to have compound curves which will I'm going to use 8/4. While digging through the storage shed I came across some curly red maple that I saved from the wood pile about a decade ago. It's moisture content is right about 11% which matches the 8/4 I'm using.

Where can I mix the two? If I make the lid out of one and the box out of the other would one move enough to cause an issue. My design is for the lid to be about 1/4" larger than the box so this is more of a question for future reference. Could the rear of the box be made out of red maple and the rest hard maple? I assume if I make feet that wouldn't be an issue but what about a base? For that matter whould a base made out of walnut or cherry be an issue?

I figure these could become gifts or something fun to watch go up in flames in the wood stove. Right now I'm more trying to learn. That's kind of why I went with making a 45 miter in 8/4. If I can make a nice tight 8/4 joint then 1/2" or 3/4"miter joint should be easier. If I do give them away I would rather not have a wood movement issue. I did find a few post from people saying they mix soft and hard but not any rules.

[Andrew Seemann]

I mixed them on my Scandinavian style workbench without any issues so far. Soft maple tends to be much more stable than hard maple, which has a proclivity for warping in use. I also used a piece of cherry in it without issue. Walnut also tends to be fairly stable in use, probably close to the soft maple.

For something the scale of a jewelry box (I'm thinking something the size of a kleenex box or toaster), I wouldn't think you would run into issues.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

You can follow normal practices and be just fine with most (all that I know of) wood species. That is, figure it will all grow and shrink a little and plan accordingly. As you probably know, wood moves a lot more with the grain than across it, so line up grain as much as possible and allow for movement when cross grain situations happen, regardless of wood species. Honestly on something the size of a jewelry box you can nearly ignore wood movement issues, but you might as well build it like it might be an issue.

[Jim Becker]

Even if you were mixing species that have significant differences in seasonal wood movement, on a small project, there is not a huge amount of risk simply because of scale. As to the soft and hard maple...no worries. Hard maple is often more uniform in light color and soft maple often has "the figure". Use accordingly in a project.

[Brian Tymchak]

You could design to avoid the movement issues by featuring the figured soft maple as a floating panel for the lid.

[Alex Zeller]

I understand that something small like this is a lot less likely to cause issues but I figured I would ask. The lid is going to be an oval shape. I think I have the skills to do an oval shape floating panel but wanted to hold off. Making the panel rectangle seams wrong in my mind so my plan is to just glue the boards up, cut them to match the box, and then use a raised panel cutter to give it a profile. I'll hollow out the middle for a mirror (spent years doing glass work so that part is easy).

[Richard Coers]

My biggest concern would be the color difference. Lots of species are sold as soft maple and fewer for hard maple. Soft maple can go from gray to pink, hard is cream to white.

[Alex Zeller]

The heartwood is a gray color but the sapwood is very close to the hard maple I have. I had difficulty getting 8/4 hard maple so I ended up with stuff that's more yellow than white so it matches up pretty well. The soft maple I'm using is from logs that were bucked up for firewood (so about 16" long) and were probably about 12" in diameter so they are mostly sap wood. Getting anything larger than a 6" wide board would be difficult.

I'm actually thinking that the rear of the box might be a good place to use it. My father bought a player piano for some strange reason that didn't work. The outside was some sort of hideous black vinyl. But when you opened it up they used a burl veneer on the interior of the side boards. I was thinking that when the lid is opened it might be kind of nice to see. It'll be easy to test to see how well it'll work as the front corners are mitered but the back is going to be straight so it'll be a rabbit (otherwise you'll see the end grain of the rear board on the sides). I have the front and sides glued up but not the back yet so I can put a piece in place and see how it looks. I'm kind of doing this fly by the seat of my pants so it could turn out very ugly.