Soft Maple

The heartwood is light to dark reddish-brown, and can have a faint purplish hue or a greyish or greenish tinge from time to time. The grain is normally straight and close, but can be wavy or curly, and pith flecks are often present. The sapwood is white to greyish-white.

Properties:

Soft maples are about 25% softer than the hard maples. The wood is good for steam bending, but has low stiffness and resistance to shock loads, with medium crushing and bending strengths. It works satisfactorily with hand and machine tools, and has a moderate dulling effect on cutting edges. Soft maple planes and bores well, nails and screws satisfactorily, but is difficult to glue. It can be stained and polished to an excellent finish.

Seasoning:

Soft maple dries slowly and easily with little degrade. There can sometimes be problems with ring failure and honeycombing due to wet wood. If the airflow during drying is not adequate, blue staining can occur.

Durability:

The heartwood is not durable and can be attacked by decay-causing fungi and insects. The sapwood is permeable for preservative treatment, but the heartwood is fairly difficult to treat.

Typical Uses:

Furniture, including office furniture and kitchen cabinets; musical instruments, domestic flooring, interior joinery, corestock and truck bodies. It is also rotary-cut for plywood and sliced for figured decorative veneers.

Acer rubrum and A. saccharinum (Aceraceae)

Also called:

Carolina red maple, Drummond red maple, maple, red maple, scarlet maple, swamp maple, water maple, silver maple

Grows:

Canada and eastern USA

Weight per Board Foot:

3.2 lbs

Typical dry weight:

A. rubrum 39lb/ft3 (630 kg/m3); A. saccharinum 34lb/ft3 (550 kg/m3)

Special Gravity:

A. rubrum, 63; A. saccharinum .55

Typical Height:

60-100ft (18-30m)

Trunk Diameter:

2ft 6 in (0.8m)