Working with maple
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- This topic has 10 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 9 months ago by Ed.
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I am using maple for the first time and am finding it challenging to work. It isn’t a figured maple. The grain is fairly uniform. While oak and pine plane easily with the plan just whisking over the surface, the maple is a battle. It takes much more force and can grab and slip. To make sure this isn’t a sharpening issue, I got out my honing guide and my old pre-Paul waterstones, and sharpened all the way up to a 10,000 grit stone (about .5 microns). This did help with the grab and slip, but it still seems to take much more force than when planing oak. The only thing that makes a lot of difference is to oil the sole of the plane. I certainly cannot hog off thick shavings like I can with oak and pine.
What are other people’s experiences using maple? Is this just the nature of the beast?
18 July 2016 at 9:44 pm #138572Maple does put up more of a fight than oak or pine. Beech is similar, they’re both hard, dense, close-grained woods.
Either it dulls irons quicker or it won’t tolerate a dull iron, maybe a bit of both. I find I have to sharpen up maybe twice as often with maple as compared with oak. It makes it a tedious wood to work with in large quantities, up there with teak on the “avoid” list.
Matt
@chemical_cake , Paul sharpens to 1200 on the diamond plates and then strops with compound. Is that comparable to whatever sharpening you find to be required for maple?
19 July 2016 at 12:40 am #138580Yes more or less, I don’t use any special sharpening. Maybe set the cap iron further back if you tend to set it fine, 1.5mm or more back from the edge makes life easier on benign wood.
Matt
By the way, one thing that helped was a light, quick wipe of the wood with alcohol. Whether it is the alcohol or the water doing the trick, it seemed to improve the plane-ability, at least briefly. I’ll try water next time…avoiding the chemicals is better if it is adequate.
19 July 2016 at 12:41 pm #138605Interesting, I wonder why that should be. Must try it next time I have any maple.
19 July 2016 at 10:10 pm #138632Ed, I’ve had the same issues you describe with maple. It’s just a tough wood to work with. My solution was exactly what you wrote in your first post above – sharpen up really well and oil the sole. Makes a huge difference.
@dbockel2, do you know if your maple was hard vs. soft? Air dried vs. kiln? I wonder how much those things matter?
For mine, I have no idea. I took a few 1-foot pieces of 8/4 cutoffs from a scrap bin at a mill to play with and cannot say other than that it is clear straight grain, not figured, very light color.
Anyway, this isn’t a tear out issue. It’s a too-hard-to-push-the-plane issue and skip/grab. I can’t believe I once thought oak was hard.
I take it all back! I bought some soft maple last night and have to ripsaw it…my arm is not happy today and I’m not even done with one rip (about a 4′ board). I don’t have much issue planing it but man, sawing this board is a b*&ch! I need a better/sharper rip saw.
I’m finding it varies a lot between maple scraps that I have. It is always harder than working with oak. Sometimes, it is workable and on other pieces it is a complete struggle. Sawing is slow, as you say. Playing with this is improving my skills, that’s for sure. Well, maybe I should say it is frustrating the !@#$#!@$# out of me, but the skills should improve from it.
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