SPECIES: Hard Maple

Appearance

Color: Hard maple sapwood ranges from pale to creamy white, while the heartwood ranges in color from creamy white to light reddish brown. Hard maple also tends to “yellow” with exposure to ultraviolet light.

Grain: The grain patterns of hard maple are closed and subdued in nature with medium figuring and uniform texture. Occasionally, hard maple shows quilted, fiddleback, curly or bird's-eye figuring, which may be culled during grading and sold at a premium.

Density: Hard maple, which is also called sugar maple, is one of the hardest commercially available domestic species. This is why hard maple is used for bowling alley floors.

Workability

The tendency toward reverse grain in hard maple makes machining difficult. Extra care must be taken during sanding and finishing. With hard maple, sanding marks and finish lines can be more obvious due to maple's light color. The species also burnishes, dulling fine paper and screens and making it difficult to sand out previous scratches. Although hard maple takes neutral finishes well, its reverse grain tendency may render it difficult to stain.