Maple versus soft maple

I have the opportunity to purchase some maple boards and some soft maple boards.

The regular maple boards are 12 feet long by 12" wide by 1-1/2" and cost $3 a board foot. They are some over stock by a local lumber yard that has no use for it, The soft maple is about 3" wide by 3/4(?) by about 12' and going for a bout $3 a linear foot.

my questions are, is this a good deal and what is the difference between maple and soft maple (besides the obvious of course)?

Both lumber are very clean. The maple is rough sawn I think, the soft is dressed.

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Originally Posted by Julio Navarro

I have the opportunity to purchase some maple boards and some soft maple boards.

The regular maple boards are 12 feet long by 12" wide by 1-1/2" and cost $3 a board foot. They are some over stock by a local lumber yard that has no use for it, The soft maple is about 3" wide by 3/4(?) by about 12' and going for a bout $3 a linear foot.

my questions are, is this a good deal and what is the difference between maple and soft maple (besides the obvious of course)?

Both lumber are very clean. The maple is rough sawn I think, the soft is dressed.

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You'll get more autoratative answers then mine but from what I've noticed... There is little or no difference I can tell in the hardness, hard maple is very light with very little grain color. The soft varies in color from a more defined grain color to grey to an off beige, it also has strips that look like sap wood running through it at times. I have also pulled some bds out of the soft maple pile that look just as nice as the hard, including a bit of tiger striping to it. I've never finished the soft so I don't know how the final look is as compared to hard. I also haven't noticed much difference in weight.

To quote another source
"The primary difference between hard and soft maple is obviously hardness, but also color. The hard maple you buy should be 99% white sapwood. The soft maple often comes in about 50-75% white sapwood with the remainder being a gray/brown heartwood. This doesn't present a problem if painting, but clear finish looks terrible."

6/4 FAS Hard runs $5.65 bf
4/4 FAS Soft (Red) is $3.80 bf

I'd grab the Hard and skip on the 3" soft for $3 lf, if my math is right and it's really 4/4 thats $12 a bf.

I'm building some closet cabinets right now and am using the soft variety for my face frame work and some other structural components as needed. It's been easy to get locally, fairly inexpensive, and does have the variation in color mentioned. I'm staining with a darker stain - all that color goes south and it has worked out very well for me.

The price premium here for the hard wasn't worth it to me.

Pete

Thanks Bob, great info, they have a stack of maybe 20 boards 12' long. I am going ot pick up about 2 boards today. Thanks again