Maple box

[Rusty Nesmith]

I hate to say it but I bought some wood. I needed some dry wood for some boxes. I bought a piece of maple 3.5” thick and cherry 4” thick. Both kiln dried. Man was that maple hard. This is a box I made from a piece of the maple. It is 4” in diameter and 4” tall. There is no finish on it yet, it just came off the lathe.

 

[Richard Coers]

What am I missing? This sure looks like walnut to me.

 

[Brian Gustin]

What am I missing? This sure looks like walnut to me.

Or, roasted Maple. I've seen it available commercially from several online vendors, so....

 

[Lou Jacobs]

What am I missing? This sure looks like walnut to me.

I would have guessed walnut too. But in any case, it’s a pretty box!

 

[Ron Solfest]

Looks like maple to me, and a pretty box. Nice job Rusty.

 

[William Rogers]

I will go with walnut or remote possibility of the roasted maple Brian suggested. Not the maple I have ever turned.

 

[Richard Coers]

Hard maple shows medullary ray flecks in sections parallel to the growth rings, any of that?
This is hard maple.

 

[Rusty Nesmith]

The guy I got it from said silver maple. At our club meeting this morning one of the guys works for the department of forestry and looked at it with his jewelers eye magnifier and also said silver maple. I have no clue. I can’t tell one tree from another. Lol

 

[Brian Gustin]

The guy I got it from said silver maple. At our club meeting this morning one of the guys works for the department of forestry and looked at it with his jewelers eye magnifier and also said silver maple. I have no clue. I can’t tell one tree from another. Lol

I see silver maple (AKA one of the Soft Maples) can be a brown-ish color - https://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/differences-between-hard-maple-and-soft-maple/ Most commonly here on the east coast we'll see the classic Hard Maple (sugar maple) - Silver Maple, Red Maple and others (as mentioned in the database article I linked- of which Box Elder is among them) seem to be more of a I suppose landscape tree around here, I don't see them too often in larger sizes out here in the boonies and a few of the loggers I talk to now and then don't think much of them or see them as particularly valuable timber (Other than firewood) but they're fairly common in yardscapes (Usually from the 10 free trees packs from arbor day) - But that's all JMHO - and I do know you can get roasted hard maple from some suppliers that wood comes out looking quite brown

 

[Rusty Nesmith]

I see silver maple (AKA one of the Soft Maples) can be a brown-ish color - https://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/differences-between-hard-maple-and-soft-maple/ Most commonly here on the east coast we'll see the classic Hard Maple (sugar maple) - Silver Maple, Red Maple and others (as mentioned in the database article I linked- of which Box Elder is among them) seem to be more of a I suppose landscape tree around here, I don't see them too often in larger sizes out here in the boonies and a few of the loggers I talk to now and then don't think much of them or see them as particularly valuable timber (Other than firewood) but they're fairly common in yardscapes (Usually from the 10 free trees packs from arbor day) - But that's all JMHO - and I do know you can get roasted hard maple from some suppliers that wood comes out looking quite brown

Sorry I think I meant sugar maple. Which ever one is the hard maple. This wood was very hard.

 

[Rusty Nesmith]

I will try to get a picture of one of the blanks before it is turned tomorrow.

 

[Russell Nugent]

I can't understand how a thread about a nice woodturned box has turned into passive aggressive posts. This is such a turn off for this site.

 

[hockenbery]

This is soft maple with some discolored heartwood that was near spalting. This is no maple that is chocolate brown

You know a lot more about wood identification than I do
These are some soft maple pieces 13-14” diameter - probably silver but could be red.
They show brown color. The one with voids I bleached the inside.
Finish is Waterlox so could be darkened a little

 

[Leo Van Der Loo]

That box is not Silver Maple IMO, Maple does not grow with the scalloped grain that the box shows, neither does Black Walnut.


I have seen that kind of wood grain in Hickory and in Butternut.

The wood grain and color is not Silver Maple, here are couple Silver Maple turnings.








Whatever it is I'm not sure off, but not Silver Maple, maybe some Hickory, but I'm not familiar with all Hickory species or related species.


Nice enough box, though I find the wall a bit heavy.

 

[robo hippy]

I have only gotten one hard/sugar maple tree, and that was a while ago. I have had a number of silver maple blanks. Biggest difference between them is hardness, and the sugar maple is by far harder. Other than that, The silver maple tend to get really big, really fast, like 1 inch diameter per year here, and then they fall apart. they probably would be a much better forest tree than an urban tree. Both will have medullary rays, and those show up far better on quarter sawn pieces.

robo hippy

 

[Don Wattenhofer]

This is an example of silver maple made from a city tree I believe had been cut in St. Paul. This was turned in the fall of 1993 at a meeting of the MWA after the symposium in Sunny Purchase NY where I attended the demo by the Master of the wooden hat.

 

[Michael Anderson]

Nice box, Rusty. I’ve not seen the scalloped pattern in Silver Maple, but I have seen just about every color imaginable. To me, Silver Maple is kind of like Forest Hump’s box of chocolates, “you never know what you’re gonna get”. I’ve not had any wood that is quite as clear and pretty as Leo’s and Don's examples, but I have had plenty that were silver, gray, brown, etc… here is a small grouping of some pieces I have on hand:



Just about every color the rainbow. The yellow/green cast of the small bowl is mostly light reflecting off the surface. Ignore that. Edit: just to be clear, I agree with you that it’s probably Maple.

 

[Gabriel Hoff]

I hate to say it but I bought some wood. I needed some dry wood for some boxes. I bought a piece of maple 3.5” thick and cherry 4” thick. Both kiln dried. Man was that maple hard. This is a box I made from a piece of the maple. It is 4” in diameter and 4” tall. There is no finish on it yet, it just came off the lathe.

View attachment 61951View attachment 61952

Nice box Rusty, the handle on the lid is a nice touch!

 

[Ron Solfest]

Rusty - this thread has taken on a life of it’s own all about what the wood is, each time I open the thread my first thought is of the beautiful outcome you achieved from this piece of wood.

As I mentioned earlier, it looks like hard maple to me and I keep wondering what I’m missing that other very knowledgeable people question. Maybe it’s the photography and color balance that’s leading some astray. I post-processed your photo with Snapseed to make it truer to what I imagine it looks like - is this an accurate representation or did I just muddy the water more?

 

[Rusty Nesmith]

Rusty - this thread has taken on a life of it’s own all about what the wood is, each time I open the thread my first thought is of the beautiful outcome you achieved from this piece of wood.

As I mentioned earlier, it looks like hard maple to me and I keep wondering what I’m missing that other very knowledgeable people question. Maybe it’s the photography and color balance that’s leading some astray. I post-processed your photo with Snapseed to make it truer to what I imagine it looks like - is this an accurate representation or did I just muddy the water more?

View attachment 62021

Yes that is what it looks like. The guy I got it from sais it was maple and a friend of mine that works for the forestry department said it was maple. I am going to stick with maple.

 

[Brian Gustin]

Rusty - this thread has taken on a life of it’s own all about what the wood is, each time I open the thread my first thought is of the beautiful outcome you achieved from this piece of wood.

Agree. I still don't really get why there's so many know-it-all doubting thomases that argue that a piece of wood isn't what the owner says it is, rather than just enjoying the resulting piece...

I've gotten that at market shows too with a little cherry wood box that a visitor to my booth swore up and down it was maple because of the little bit of spalting going up the grain, despite the fact that it was actually harvested in my back yard and I knew the tree was cherry. (the wood somehow got some spalting going while it sat out on the ground waiting for me to turn it...before that I never knew cherry could spalt..)

 

[Rusty Nesmith]

Ok here is a picture of the maple next to a piece of cherry. The maple is on the top of the picture.