What Is Soft Maple Wood Good For?
Soft maple comes from maple species that grow slightly less dense wood than hard maple. It is only soft compared to hard maple and is considered a hardwood not a softwood. Soft maple is useful for many projects hard maple also is used for, from cabinets to musical instruments, although hard maple remains most appropriate for applications requiring significant hardness. Does this Spark an idea?
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Soft and Hard Maple Trees
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The maple family of trees, Aceraceae, is large -- around 20 species of maple grow in the U.S. Hard maple wood comes from sugar maple (Acer saccharum), which is the same tree that gives maple syrup; and black maple (Acer nigrum). Soft maple wood comes from a wider range of maples, mainly from silver maple (Acer saccherinum) and red maple (Acer rubrum). Other maple species are sometimes sold as soft maple, including box elder (Acer negundo), which is really a maple and not an elder tree; bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum) and striped maple (Acer pensylvanicum).
Sugar maple has denser wood than soft maple species because it is slower-growing and lives longer. Sugar maples can live up to 500 years, whereas other maple species such as red maple and silver maple grow faster and live up to about 130 years. Soft maple has become more popular in recent years, in part because it can be used for many of the traditional uses of hard maple wood but costs significantly less.
How 'Soft' is Soft?
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Soft maple is similar to cherry wood in hardness. The Janka Hardness test measures the hardness of woods by the force needed to sink a steel ball halfway into a plank. The resulting Janka scale is useful for ranking the comparative hardness of woods. Sugar maple, the hardest maple, is 1,450. Soft maples are 700 to 950. Silver maple and box elder at 700 are approximately half as hard as hard maple, whereas red maple is the hardest of the soft maples, and at 950 on the Janka scale is the same hardness as American Cherry and only slightly less hard than walnut.
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Wood Characteristics
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Soft maple is easier to work than hard maple. Soft maple wood tends to be more streaked and show more color variety than hard maple. Mineral spots can appear. The sapwood is white while the heartwood varies from gray to brown colors. Soft maple will take stain, although some woodworkers find it does not take stain as well as hard maple; for this reason, it is often preferred for cabinets that are to be painted.
Because soft maple is less dense than hard maple, it is slightly easier to work and does not dull cutting edges as fast as hard maple. Soft maple is less likely to show figuring and burls than hard maple, but some boards have curl and wavy grain. Soft maple produces slightly more fuzz during turning. Like hard maple, it glues easily.
Uses for Soft Maple
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Soft maple is often used in kitchens. Soft maple is used for furniture: cabinets and drawers, and chairs. It is used less for floors and benchtops than hard maple, but some good butcher blocks are made from soft maple. It is also used for musical instruments such as guitars and banjos. Soft maple is often used for projects such as toys, novelties, boxes and crates. Kiln-dried maple is occasionally used for construction. Soft maple has increased in popularity in recent years and is readily available in most lumber stores.
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References
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- Photo Credit planks image by Henryk Olszewski from Fotolia.com cherry tree image by Zbigniew Nowak from Fotolia.com planing a table top image by leemarusa from Fotolia.com Large knife on a butcher block table image by Jim Mills from Fotolia.com
