Hard Maple

A very hard, pale, fine-grained hardwood that takes heavy wear without denting - the standard for sports floors and chopping blocks.

Warum ist das wichtig?

Hard maple is priced on whiteness as much as on grade: the pale sapwood is the valuable part, which inverts the usual hardwood rule that heartwood is what you want. That makes handling and drying speed commercially critical, because stain develops fast.

Where it grows

The northeastern United States and eastern Canada.

What it is used for

Basketball and bowling floors, butcher blocks, cabinets, furniture, musical instruments, turnery.

What to watch

Hard to work and hard on tooling, and prone to burning under blunt cutters. Figured forms - bird's eye, curly - are selected out and sold at many times the price of plain stock.