soft maple

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MAPLE, SOFT

Acer spp.

Acer spp. of the family aceraceae. There are a handful of Acer species that are considered to be soft maple, but by far the two most prominent ones are Acer rubrum, which is also called "red maple" and has its own page on this site (red maple) and Acer saccharinum. Although most likely most of the woods shown here on this page are Acer saccharinum, I'm pretty sure some of them are Acer rubrum but were listed as "soft maple" instead of "red maple" and thus found their way here instead of to the "maple, red" page.

Bigleaf maple (generally Acer macrophyllum) is also a soft maple but has its own page on this site (bigleaf maple)

The characteristics of woods sold as soft maple (and this is more true of Acer saccharinum than it is of Acer rubrum) are distinctly different that that of wood sold as hard maple, the primary difference being, not surprisingly, that hard maple is very hard and soft maple is generally pretty soft. Soft maple, in my own limited experience but also backed my many comments I've seen on woodworking forums, tends to fuzz up when turned or planed, unless the operation is performed with razor sharp tools.

A commonly touted test for whether a wood is a hard maple or a soft maple is the "fingernail test" where you simply see if you can dent the wood with your fingernail. Unfortunately, in reality this test is very unreliable. Although it is true more often than not that hard maples won't dent and soft maples will, sometimes soft maples cannot be dented and sometimes hard maples can.

my samples:
NOTE: these pics were all taken in very bright incandescent lighting ("soft white" at 2700K)
colors will vary under other lighting conditions

face and side pics of a sample chunk of soft maple sold to me with no botanical designation. This piece is freshly sanded but had been sitting around for 9 years and sanding it did not noticeable change the color.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

face grain closeup and side grain closeup of the piece directly above

On the piece directly above, I had not done an end grain update, so I sliced off the angled side to make it rectangular and then did the update, showing the new piece here as end grain, end grain closeup, and END GRAIN UPDATE. HUGE enlargements are present.

sample plank and end grain listed as silver maple / white maple / Acer saccharinum

end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

both sides of a sample plank of silver maple / Acer saccharinum --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample was loaned to me by David Clark whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

both sides of a sample plank of silver maple / Acer saccharinum --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample was loaned to me by Mark Peet whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

both sides of a sample plank of silver maple / Acer saccharinum --- HUGE enlargements are present.

end grain and HIGH GRIT END GRAIN CLOSEUP of the piece directly above

first face and the end grain of a sample of soft maple / Acer saccharinum. This part of a collection which is discussed here: COLLECTION A

the second face, before and sanding, showing how the patina from aging is only surface deep.

end grain closeup and END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above.

first face and the end grain of a sample of soft maple / Acer saccharinum. This part of a collection which is discussed here: COLLECTION A.

the second face, before and after sanding, showing how the patina from aging is only surface deep.

end grain closeup and END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above.

both sides of a sample plank of soft maple / Acer spp. --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample was contributed to the site by Rob Mathison by whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site. The third pic is one Rob took when the wood was fairly freshly milled and showed a very strong pink color. By the time it got to me, this had faded to what you see in the second pic.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

both sides of a sample plank of bearclaw soft maple --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample was loaned to me by Mark Peet whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site.

face grain closeups

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

both sides of a sample piece of spalted silver maple / Acer saccharinum. This sample was loaned to me by Mark Peet whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site.

end grain of the piece directly above

both sides of a sample plank of mistletoe burl silver maple / Acer saccharinum --- HUGE enlargements are present. This sample was loaned to me by Mark Peet whom I thank for this and other contributions to the site.

end grain and end grain closeup of the piece directly above

END GRAIN UPDATE from directly above

finished box tops shot at a craft store. Neither was marked as figued (just "soft maple") but clearly the first is curly and the second is quilted

veneer samples of soft maple / Acer saccharinum --- HUGE enlargements are present. This part of a collection which is discussed here: COLLECTION D. The one from the old collection is labled "white" maple which is an alternate common name for Acer saccharinum. The one on the left is from the new collection and is quartersawn and the middle one is from the new collection and is listed as flat cut but look more like rift cut to me.

The Wood Book pics

flat cut, quartersawn, end grain
soft maple (Acer dasycarpum, also listed as silver leaved maple, white maple, and silver maple) from The Wood Book --- both levels of enlargement are available for each of the 3 views. My own data base only lists this as swamp silver maple and I hypothesize that this is a relatively obscure species of maple and is not likely to be what you get when you buy"soft maple".

web pics:

planks with wet and dry sections

soft maple log end

both sides of a soft maple slab and then another slab

flat cut planks

quartersawn planks

misc planks

plank listed as Northern soft maple

soft maple slabs with ambrosia markings. Enlargements are present and you can clearly see that on this one the beetles didn't get past the sapwood. That's not always the case. LOTS more ambrosia maple pics are available on the ambrosia maple page of this site.

ambrosia soft maple

soft maple plank with some ambrosia markings and a curly figure, moistened in the middle

closeups of a couple of curly soft maple slabs that have been moistened in the middle

plank listed as curly soft maple / Acer Saccharinum

curly planks --- curly maple can be hard maple or soft maple and there is a page on this site for just "maple, curly" which is both but I have left some here just to be inclusive for soft maple

planks listed as "Eastern" soft maple with the first on listed as curly and the second as figured. "Eastern" is kind of redundant in soft maple since soft maple comes from the Eastern parts of the US (and slightly up into Canada)

curly soft maple tuning stock

bowl blank listed as soft maple

bowl shot at a craft show, listed as curly soft maple --- HUGE enlargements are present

Two views of a little turning I did specifically to show many aspects of the grain. This turning was done 9 years ago and I just now got around to taking the pics (I TOLD you I was a world class procrastinator. Or wait ... did I put off telling you that?) Anyway, the piece was taken from the same batch of soft maple as my sample shown at the top of the page and was pretty much pure white. The polyurethane finish yellowed the wood, as it does with most maple, and I don't think much if any of the darkening is due to ageing since the unfinished sample at the top of the page was white before I sanded it and it too had been sitting around for 9 years.