Woodworking with Maple

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Woodworking with Maple: An Abundant Resource Hard Wood

Maple is one of the most often used hard woods for woodworking because it is abundant, relatively inexpensive, and beautiful.

Maple trees provide much more than just lumber, however. Certain types of Maple also provide delicious Maple Syrup. Maple is the wood of choice for floors such as roller rinks, although they are becoming harder to find.

The Maple leaf is the most readily recognized leaf, immortalized on Canada's flag. Maple is also a fine choice for hand crafted musical instruments: the tops of Gibson's Les Paul guitars are made from carved maple.

There are several forms or varieties of maple, but hard maple is the wood of choice for cutting boards, and is the foundation wood for all of the boards hand crafted by Bob Kleppin of Kleppin's Wooden Kitchen. Maple is the workhorse of hardwood end grain, butcher block cutting boards and chopping blocks not only for the tight grain and lovely honey color, but also because it's a relatively inexpensive hard wood that is also food safe.

Maple wood can be fashioned into any number of useful and ornamental items, from floors to chopping blocks to furniture.

Maple - the hardwood

Maple has many uses, from floors to food

Acer ()Sunset Western Garden Book, 1995:606?607 is a genus of trees or shrubs commonly known as Maple.

Maples are variously classified in a family of their own, the Aceraceae, or together with the Hippocastanaceae included in the family Sapindaceae. Modern classifications, including the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system, favour inclusion in Sapindaceae. The type species of the genus is Acer pseudoplatanus (Sycamore Maple).van Gelderen, C. J. & van Gelderen, D. M. (1999). Maples for Gardens: A Color Encyclopedia

There are approximately 125 species, most of which are native to Asia,, with a number also appearing in Europe, northern Africa, and North America.

The word Acer is derived from a Latin word meaning "sharp", referring to the characteristic points on maple leaves. It was first applied to the genus by the French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort in 1700.

A red maple leaf is the prominent feature of the flag of Canada.

read the rest of the Wikipedia article

Maple Wood Teething Ring

This is what we did before plastic - probably a better choice even now.

Waldorf Maple Teether Natural Teething Ring

Amazon Price: $9.99 (as of 01/07/2010)

This is the first Maple hardwood teething ring I have ever seen - however, now that I think about it, what a cool idea! natural wood isn't going to poison baby and isn't going to fill up the landfill once baby's done chewing on it, and probably tastes better than plastic teething rings, too.

Spalted Curly Maple has a different look

Spalted Maple isn't used for cutting boards

While lovely to look at, and creating unique one-of-a-kind patterns, spaulted wood is generally unsuitable for cutting boards. In essence, spaulting is caused by bacterial rot in dead wood. That's an over simplification, of course, and spaulted wood CAN be used for many lovely items, but each piece has unique characteristics and in general spaulted wood has to be utilized on a case-by-case basis, as no two pieces are alike.

The spaulting in this example photo is the dark lines in the wavy pattern.

Close Up Example of Spaulting in Curly Maple

This piece was stable enough to use in a guitar top

Notice the light reflection off the curly grain, and the dark lines of the spaulting. Lovely! More examples of spaulted and curly maple guitars can be found at Moonstone Guitars

Maple Wood on eBay

Notice how many of these are musical instruments

Fetching new data from eBay now... please stand by

This is curly maple that has been oiled for a glossy finish

a glossy finish is softer than a varnish finish, but still reflects light

One thing to consider when oiling your wood, is that oiling "pops the grain" and then requires additional sanding. Popping the grain means that some parts of the wood will absorb oil and swell a bit, causing the surface to become uneven. All Heritage Heirloom Cutting Boards have been oiled and sanded several times to ensure that the grain will no longer pop when you re-oil your board after hard use.

This Bench Was Crafted From Curly Maple

Isn't it lovely?

This photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Quilted Maple

Prized for its beauty, Quilted Maple is often used for musical instruments

Here's an example of a piece of Quilted Maple before being made into a final product. More photos can be found at this college Photo Gallery

Quilt maple - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Quilt or quilted maple is a type of maple in which the growth of the wood fibers is distorted, producing a beautiful wavy "quilted" look, often similar to ripples on water. This type of distortion is referred to as "figure" in the wood, and is not a distortion of the grain pattern itself as is commonly thought. Prized for its beauty, it is used frequently in the manufacturing of musical instruments. See also flame maple.

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Woodworking with Maple

Woodworking with Maple: An Abundant Resource Hard Wood

Maple - the hardwood

Maple has many uses, from floors to food

Maple Wood Teething Ring

This is what we did before plastic - probably a better choice even now.

Spalted Curly Maple has a different look

Spalted Maple isn't used for cutting boards

Close Up Example of Spaulting in Curly Maple

This piece was stable enough to use in a guitar top

Maple Wood on eBay

Notice how many of these are musical instruments

This is curly maple that has been oiled for a glossy finish

a glossy finish is softer than a varnish finish, but still reflects light

This Bench Was Crafted From Curly Maple

Isn't it lovely?

Quilted Maple

Prized for its beauty, Quilted Maple is often used for musical instruments

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Hardwood cutting boards use Maple as a base wood

Exotic hardwoods add the color and design

Othe hardwoods used with maple for cutting boards

Maple and Maple Related Items on Amazon

Bob the BoardMaster is now a Lensmaster too!

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