Soft Maple, Hard Maple

[Chris Fournier]

These best way to determine one woods "hardness" relative to anothers is to look at the known specific gravity of the wood species. A terrific book for woodworkers is World Woods In Colour by William A. Lincoln. Great colur plates and tons of information including specific gravity - not cheap but worth every penny.

David, hard maple is usually a term used for Acer saccharum, sugar maple or rock maple. Soft maple is used to refer to all the other maples including your spectacular bigleaf maple.

[Buck Williams]

In the Eastern half of the US, Silver Maple (Acer Saccharum L) is what is typically sold as soft maple. It's fast growing and thus offers up some nice wide cuts if you need them. Usually a bargain wood in the upper Mid-West.

http://www.mapleinfo.org/htm/silver.cfm

[Danny Hamsley]

Red maple (Acer rubrum) and silver maple (Acer saccharinum) are the soft maples in the east. Red maple is very nice to work with.

[Chris Fournier]

Red maple (Acer rubrum) and silver maple (Acer saccharinum) are the soft maples in the east. Red maple is very nice to work with.

Yeah, in my experience red maple is the nicest of our eastern softs although the silvers can surprise you.