Hard maple vs. soft maple

[Robert McGowen]

A maple question please. The lumber yard where I get most of my hardwood has very little hard maple and none of it is dimensioned. It is sold by the board foot. They have a LOT of soft maple and all of it is dimensioned. It is sold by the linear foot and ends up being about 60% more than the non-dimensioned lumber, but of course, has very little waste. I would be using it for segmented work and need to know what the difference is, if any, in turning hard maple versus soft maple?

P.S. Posting this makes me think about all the posts where the northern turners get a nice piece of spalted maple out of the firewood pile and I'm thinking "give me a break!" I have a whole trailer full of nice mesquite logs that my oldest son wants to bar-b-que with though.
Oh well....... :rolleyes:

[Jim Becker]

From a practical perspective, you'll not notice a whole lot of difference between hard maple and soft maple...they are both "hard". You'll get a lot more color variation in soft maple as it's heartwood is darker and left in the boards. A most of the hard maple is light sapwood. Based on that, you'll need to consider the impact of color variablity within your segmented work.

[George Tokarev]

Rule of thumb here is that if you can get a thumbnail in it, it's soft maple. The foresters have three "hard" maples that I've heard of, primarily sugar. I go by the "pop" when machining. Hard maple pops and flakes more easily along the rays, and for flat work, it's death by a thousand cuts, because the edges are so sharp off the jointer or saw.

Reason soft maple isn't popular is that it goes to dark heart much faster and it's not particularly easy to match color. Pretty much pallet lumber up here. Hard maple is generally whiter, more uniform, and with very little dark wood near the heart, even in large trees.

[Gary Herrmann]

Having drilled pen blanks in both hard and soft, I will say the end grain of hard is a lot harder than the soft.