Maple Heartwood

[Pedro Reyes]

Has anyone worked with it? I am going to come clean and confess that I had not realized that most maple we see is sapwood. I was ignorant of the fact that heartwood is for some reason not as commercialized, is there a reason for this? Is it too hard, too brittle, difficult to work with? I saw some on the bay and I must say, I like the color, it is not cherry or walnut colored.

Anyone have any experience with it?

/p

[Roger Rettenmeier]

P1010886.jpgP1010888.jpgI am working with some maple that has both heartwood and sapwood pieces. The heartwood does seem a bit gnarlier. The maple will be the top part of three piece entertainment center. The main piece is done and fits in a corner. The other two pieces will flank it. I will band it with walnut once it is finish planed.ent.jpg

[Pedro Reyes]

Looking very nice, is that the walnut edging the piece on the last picture?

The stuff I am looking at is quite dark, it is also described as spalted, but not the usual gray/green hue you see when someone says spalted maple.

maple 57.jpg

Somehow I imagined it would be more brittle/gnarly, thanks for chiming in.

/p

[Roger Rettenmeier]

The stiles and rails are walnut. The top and shelves are douglas fir or pine with walnut banding

[Tony Parent]

From the "wood database":
http://www.wood-database.com/lumber-identification/hardwoods/red-maple/

Color/Appearance: Unlike most other hardwoods, the sapwood of maple lumber is most commonly used rather than its heartwood. Sapwood color ranges from almost white, to a light golden or reddish brown, while the heartwood is a darker reddish brown. Red Maple can also be seen with curly or quiltedgrain patterns.

So that may be what you have pic's of. Looks like is has some sort of finish already on it. I have not seen red maple made into boards. Around here most of what I've seen is too crooked for logs, so I have not seen the heartwood as boards. I'll have to see if there's one around that is big enough for milling the next time I'm up in the woods...

I wouldn't call the spots "spalted". They could be anywhere from "not an issue" to "really soft". I recently finished a table out of rock maple that had areas like that. You can see it best in the last image. In my case, the board on the left was OK, but the board on the right was bordering on too soft.

[Chris Fournier]

More defect and it is "discoloured". I don't look for it but on the right project I don't avoid it.

[Pedro Reyes]

Thanks all for your replies. Tony that table is beautiful.

/p

[bill tindall]

The heartwood in maple is a relatively small fraction of the tree diameter, unlike say oak where it is a large fraction. The center of trees is where juvenile limbs once lived that are now knots. The centers of trees will therefore usually be lower grade lumber. Hence, if you are buying high grade lumber you will see little heartwood in maple. In National Hardwood Lumber Association graded maple the heartwood is considered equivalent to the sap wood and indeed it is indistinguishable from it except color. That said, some applications demand "white wood" and some mills select a "sap wood only" grade of maple.

The heartwood of maple can be various shades of black or brown. This color will change when exposed to light for a while.

[Pedro Reyes]

(snip)...This color will change when exposed to light for a while.

Thanks Bill, should I assume that it will lighten (like walnut) and lose that nice dark honey tone?

Pedro

[Sean Hughto]

I think of maple heartwood like I think of cherry or walnut sapwood - sometimes I include it and sometimes I exclude it. While there are subtle differences in workability between sap and heart in most species, they are not worth worrying about much. My experience is that there can be more difference between sticks of the the same species depending upon growing conditions, region, and drying, for example. Indeed, one often gets sap and heart on the same pieces. Heart is just sap that has stopped carrying water and had had some slight cellular changes and so forth. As for maple, one of my recent projects - a vanity table with a natural edge top - highlighted the maple heart (along with the ambrosia maple beetle contributions:




Also, there are lots of kinds of "maple" from hard to soft and suger, to red, to silver, and so on. They are all somewhat different.