Hard Maple Vs Soft Maple

Soft maple on the other hand is derived from several different variations of the maple species and go by names such as red maple acer rebrum and bigleaf maple acer macrophyllum.

Hard maple vs soft maple. Butcher blocks flooring workbench tops etc. Department of agriculture plant hardiness zones 5 to 9 red maple acer rubrum in zones 3 to 9 and silver maple acer saccarinum in. Hard maple is commonly referred to as sugar maple. Traditionally hard maple and soft maple have both been commonly used in the manufacture of furniture cabinets instruments and various specialty items.

Hard maple is more commonly found in flooring because it is more dense and it is a bit harder by nature about 25 harder that soft maple. Soft maple hard maple is the common term for two species of maple trees. Scroll down for more info links etc. The term refers to the quality of a maple trees wood.

Hard maple is commonly used in the manufacture of flooring furniture cabinets billiard cues and other finished wood products. Soft maple should be priced lower than hard maple. I do like the color and figure that i can get locally in soft maple and have used it for legs on benches but where strength is necessary i stick with hard maple. Hard maple refers to just one species acer saccharum aka rock or sugar maple and it is the species from which we get maple syrup.

Within all the different variations of the maple species they are primarily separated into one of two types of lumber hard maple and soft maple. Soft maple dowels bow more almost 12 inch versus less than 14 inch on hard maple of the same 26 lengths and sometimes break. The main instances where you would want to stick with hard maple would be in applications where hardness and strength are important such as. On the janka hardness scale a scale that ranks wood for hardness hickory is the hardest of all domestic hardwoods ranking at 1820.

Sugar maple acer saccharum and black maple acer nigrum. Maples labeled soft are the fast growing species that seem to shoot up overnight including garden friendly landscape trees such as bigleaf acer macrophyllum in us. Soft maple as a wood species. Hard maple 1450 lb f janka is roughly twice as hard as soft maple 700 950 lb f jankaprimarily because it tends to grow about half as fast as most other soft maple species.

Soft maple is slightly less dense and not as strong. Soft maple can actually be one of several species of maple with big leaf the predominant species in the northwest and red or silver maple on the east coast.