smoothing curly maple

[mike roe]

hello everyone

i was lucky last week at lowes and found 2 maple boards with pretty heavy curl. they were right in front too. anyway im building a small table with the maple for the table top aprons and legs and rosewood breadboard ends. I needed to flatten and plane the maple to get it to size and its tearing badly. whats the best way to smooth out this kind of figure? Im thinking a card scraper or well tuned plane (neither of which do i own yet). I really dont want to sand away on this forever but i dont want to dare ruining these boards either.

thanks!

[Rick Peek]

If you are using a planer,try wetting the boards and running
it thru at an angle.It has worked great for me.

[Jon Lanier]

Lowes carries Maple???? :eek: Not around here they don't.

[Sean Kinn]

I just went through this (as a relative newbie woodworker too). I ended up going for a vintage Stanley #4 smoothing plane on Ebay. Once I sharpened the blade to the scary sharp level, and set it for a very fine cut I was able to smooth with zero visible tearout.

Oh, yeah....same comment from me...your Lowes carries maple?

[Gary Herrmann]

Smooth plane or a byrd/shelix type head on a jointer.

[Stan Welborn]

I've been in a bunch of Lowe's stores, and have never seen one which carried maple. Maybe this is a new thing?

[Guy Germaine]

Lowes carries Maple???? :eek: Not around here they don't.

They just opened a Home Depot about 3 miles from my house. I stopped in the other night just to look around, and they had Maple there too. I looked through the stack a little and found several pieces of Tiger Maple mixed in with it. :D

[Nick Clayton]

Another vote for a well tuned plane and card scraper here. When planing spritz the wood with a mist of water; don't soak it.

A second recommendation would be to seek out a local cabinet shop or custom furniture builder. Have them mill the stock flat and run it through a drum sander. This will leave the curly maple tear free.

[Jack Briggs]

Drum sander.

[mike roe]

looks ike this weekend ill be buying a scraper plane, couple of hand planes, and drum sander! hahaha im thinking ill try a card scraper ive been wanting to learn how to use one for a while anyway.

My lowes here in NJ carries maple, red oak, and poplar - although my HD just got rid of maple. Its not usually the best stuff - lots of dark mineral stains and not much figure but occassionally they have good stuff that makes its way through. Its just expensive.

[Pete Brown]

My lowes here in NJ carries maple, red oak, and poplar - although my HD just got rid of maple. Its not usually the best stuff - lots of dark mineral stains and not much figure but occassionally they have good stuff that makes its way through. Its just expensive.

The Lowes near me carries Red Oak, Poplar and some other type of whitewood which could be confused for maple (and tends to have lots of figure), but is much softer. I'm drawing a blank on it, though. [Edit: I just remembered it is aspen]

On the smoothing: unless you want to buy and learn a plane this weekend (you will probably do a number on this board learning) then I would suggest sanding it out.

I have been working with a ton of tiger maple lately. To machine it you need:
- Good sharp knives in your planer/jointer
- Aligned knives in same
- The boards running through the machines in the correct direction. Often times this is backwards due to how the figure tears out.
- A light hand and patience to make lots and lots of very shallow passes.
- Did I mention properly aligned and sharp knives?

After machining I would sand with 120 and 220 grit, then wet the wood with denatured alcohol and after that dried, up into the 300s before applying the shellac and topcoat.

Pete

[Greg Pavlov]

.....My lowes here in NJ carries maple, red oak, and poplar - although my HD just got rid of maple. Its not usually the best stuff - lots of dark mineral stains and not much figure but occassionally they have good stuff that makes its way through. Its just expensive.
... but effectively cheaper than Rockler's in many if not most cases ....

[Bill Wyko]

Take it to your local hardwood shop that has a drum sander. I've always found that figured woods can have problems with tear out any other way.

[Greg Cole]

Curly maple can be smoothed in many ways... none are going to yield anything much your project with the learning curve if you only have 2 boards.
I've had success with it using neander methods (very sharp #4 and a well prepped card scraper).... and some off cuts to learn on. Also had some success with tailed tools, but not after cussing and making a pile of expensive chips.... only to make thinner stock with nice tear out. :rolleyes: Water mist and skewed angles help. But I threaten to buy a shelix for the jointer every time I conisder running curly stock. Maybe just 'cause I want one anyway.
Neander or powered, make sure its SHARP.
I am assuming if it's from the BORG it's S4S material, so unless you are needing to resaw or totally alter the "factory finish", some final sanding should get you there?
The final project is worth the headache with this material IMO.

Cheers.
Greg

[Tim Johnson]

As many have suggested a card scraper, however if the boards are of any size, I might suggest a cabinet scraper, basically a card scraper with a holder to save your fingers and make it easier to master the curly maple in a shorter period of time. Cabinet scraper as seen here http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&cat=1,310&p=46266, and you'll need some good waterstones or some other method to make the blade really sharp, and a burnisher to form the hook ( those last two you'll need with either tool you select). Have fun, nothing like making quiet curls in the shop. Ahhhh.......

[Jon Lanier]

Pete,

Could be Aspen... which I understand belongs to the pine family.

Jon

[mike roe]

thanks for the good advice everyone

im going to go for a cabinet scraper i think. Ill post some pics once its all done

[Joe Spear]

The Lowes stores around here (eastern Massachusetts) carry red oak, poplar, and maple. Every time I go into one, I check the maple rack. There is always at least one curly maple board. It often has some dark heartwood, but I personally like that and incorporate the color into the design of some of the things I make Once I even found a curly 1 x 8 that was 10 feet long. At around $6 per board foot, the price is high for plain soft maple. However, for curly maple, it's a relative bargain. Rockler has gone as high as $20 a board foot. If you have a good hardwoods yard near you, you can probably do better in price. But since Highland Hardwoods in Brentwood, NH, is about an hour away for me, Lowes is convenient if they have a few good curly maple pieces on a given day.

By the way, aspen is not a pine. It is in the willow family of the poplar genus.

[glenn bradley]

looks ike this weekend ill be buying a scraper plane, couple of hand planes, and drum sander! hahaha im thinking ill try a card scraper ive been wanting to learn how to use one for a while anyway.

My lowes here in NJ carries maple, red oak, and poplar - although my HD just got rid of maple. Its not usually the best stuff - lots of dark mineral stains and not much figure but occassionally they have good stuff that makes its way through. Its just expensive.

Card scrapers are reasonably priced and once you play with one for about 15 minutes you'll wonder how you got along without one. You don't have to go psycho on the edge preparation either. There are plenty of articles out there on the many ways to put an edge on these wonderful little pieces of steel.