How to saw sycamore and red maple, and what to do with it.

[Engineer]

oh and black maple is a hard maple as well as sugar maple. I doubt most anyone could tell the trees apart, let alone the logs. ;D

I have a forester buddy who mentioned "black maple" in a discussion we had recently, and I told him I had never heard of it.  In our community, he said he's only ever seen one, and it's a very distinctive leaf pattern from the typical sugar maple.  Something about a three-lobed leaf rather than typical five, and rounded lobes to boot.  I have not researched this but just from memory of our conversation.  Of course, leaves aren't out yet, so I can't tell, but this time of year it looks like any other maple tree.  It's a big one, on the side of a main road nearby.  He said that they are much more common, the further south I go. 

As for soft maples, we have red and silver, and I consider them the same tree, and although you can tell the difference, I haven't cared to try.  My flooring in the entire main floor of my house, save for some tile areas, is silvermaple.  It's very showy, lots of dark streaks and a LOT of curl.  Also extremely soft, we have been actively "using" the floor for four months and it is already showing major dents and scratches.  I also used a water-based poly, so that makes it worse, but my wife and I both appreciate rustic look, character to the house, so it is not an issue.  I think the floor will look much better in 12-15 years when it has been used and abused and shows some age.

[SwampDonkey]

Some people can't even tell Norway from sugar, so..........what I meant by most was that most of the general population won't distinguish it unless they educate themselves about it or are shown. And forget it when looking at the logs. ;D

[abnorm]

I recently sawed sycamore I my best impression of this wood is what i call watermellon board as the flecking and rays are very nice with a nice pink red colour. 

As for drying it lots of splits I have it stacked with my white oak and Yellow Pop., black walnut

Very hard to split with a maul or splitter and grain is cross and interlocked

I was given the log  and wanted to make a chopping block which sycamore is very good for, but because of the splitting some coming off the mill and spliting,  I cut more than i needed to get the job done right

8q boards x 12"

haven';t had much problem with the oaks  popular walnut drying so my setup is fine just lots of checking etc with the sycimore.

hope this helps with anyones decision.

[Dave Shepard]

Welcome to the Forum!

I really like the figure of q-sawn sycamore. I don't know what ever happened to those logs I was supposed to saw, I guess they changed their mind. :-\


Dave

[Left Coast Chris]

This is a little confusing.  I also have had a different experience with soft maple than what Swampdonky describes.  The Silver Maple yard tree from my neighbor was 4' in diameter at the butt and no dark hart wood.  As white as can be all the way through.  We must be talking about different trees.   Great wood to work though but too soft for floors by a long ways.

[bck]

abnorm , I think you need to bypass airdrying the sycamore and get it straight in a kiln , that will help with the cracks. I know its good for bowls and spoons but I wonder how it would hold up as a cutting board, the stuff is really soft.

I went yesterday to start working on a  sycamore that the wind has put on the ground , 30"dia x over 20' long . it is down in a creek and not going to be the easiest to get out but...  I got to the tree and heard something sounded like prop airplane, turned and looked and saw bunches of 2" long hornets going in a dead poplar about 10' away      will be jan or feb before I go back 

[CLL]

People around here us sycamore for inside of barns, saw it one day nail it down next day. I was told as long as its nailed good it works fine.

[SwampDonkey]

Chris,

Your silver maple looks the same as ours by looking at the bark on it. The heart may be hard to distinguish when fresh cut I suspect. Any soft maple I've seem has a distinct heartwood, sapwood can be very wide I guess according to the Wood Tech Book.

Some folks here confuse the common name with boxelder (Manitoba Maple) because some one in the family called it that, so it will always be that.  :D :D "Oh!! You don't know what your talking about." :D :D

[Toolman]

Dave,

I used red maple on my living and dining room floor, 1100 sq ft. to be exact. I dried it to 4% mc. tongue`and grooved each 2" wide slab with my shaper table. THAT WAS A LONG SUMMER, alot of work. I put it down in 2002 and has held up great. 2 kids, sliding dining room chairs and pet traffic have put it to test. It looks good and I get tons of compliments on it.  The grain looks good. I used MinWax golden pecan stain and 5 coats of spar Urethane. Scuffed between coats with 220 grit sand paper. It makes nice flooring.

As for sycamore, I quarter sawed 2 a couple years ago for a guy. He used boards on walls of a pole building. The fleck looks neat with a clear stain. I just did a job for him 2 weeks ago and he showed me the boards, it looked sharp.

[tyb525]

I've heard of sycamore being used for cutting boards quite often. I've also seen a fellow that made a real nice guitar out of sycamore.

[Left Coast Chris]

I was so curious, I went out to the barn and checked the color of one of the Silver Maple 6x6 posts that came out of one edge of the heart center.  It does look uniformly white.  If the shades of white are different, its hard to tell at the rough cut ends.  We are on sandy loam (no clay) so I wounder if the soil creates lighter hart wood.  It was also a yard tree so it probably got some fertilizer.  Another possibility is some color difference may show after exposed to sun light.   All of my wood has been out of the sun.    Interesting.   :P

[Dave Shepard]

Welcome to the Forum!

I really like the figure of q-sawn sycamore. I don't know what ever happened to those logs I was supposed to saw, I guess they changed their mind. :-\


Dave

Well, they showed up last week at the mill. 8) The guys said "let's start with the small one". Ha! The small one was 30"x10" with about an inch of taper. It was a bear to turn, even with two 6'3" guys. Need an Arky Super Stick, or three. We peeled enough flat sawn off the outside to get it small enough to quarter, then we split it through the pith both ways. Made some nice boards. 8) The next log is the next log up the tree, it's about 20'. The butt log hasn't put in an appearance yet. I guess they couldn't get it on the truck. 

[Dave Shepard]

Nuff said? :D

[Dave Shepard]

Well, I'll talk about it anyway. :D These sycamore were wind thrown last spring, whenever this thread was started, I guess. I thought they had been forgotten, but all of a sudden we need to get them sawn up right away. I'm squaring up a cant on the mill, about 24"x24", and quartering it right through the pith. I then flip-flop the pith from one top corner to the other to get narrower and narrower q-sawn boards. The grain runs from a very intense pattern, like the above pic, to a very fine, even flecking. I'd have to say this is the most impressive lumber I've ever sawn. We've gotten two logs done, and a few more (smaller) still on deck. 8)

[dad2nine]

Bring me those 4' diameter sycamore butts and I'll quartersaw them - I would like to be able to saw bigger quarters but my wood mizer only goes 24" between the guides or 26" if I shim up over the bed stops. Been thinking about splitting the head and extending it out about 6 inches or so. Then I could saw 30" wide quarters, maybe one of these days  >:(

Sycamore is by far my favorite wood to quarter saw - great ray fleck it don't stink and sometimes ambrosia beetle tracks, makes great furniture grade lumber and finishes nice and smooth.

[bck]

I went yesterday to start working on a  sycamore that the wind has put on the ground , 30"dia x over 20' long . it is down in a creek and not going to be the easiest to get out but...  I got to the tree and heard something sounded like prop airplane, turned and looked and saw bunches of 2" long hornets going in a dead poplar about 10' away      will be jan or feb before I go back 

I just checked and the hornets are nowhere to be seen but I need a boat to get to it now  :  the creek bed was dry last time I was there but now it is surrounded with knee deep water  :(

[MattJ]

For what it is worth I bought a bunch of QS sycamore a few years ago for a project and found you have to be careful running it through the planer.  Too aggressive and it nearly explodes.  I had a piece literally shatter (3/4" thick) and blow out of the planer all over the place.  Nice soft passes over the jointer work well with it but you have to watch for chipout.  It also does move a bit more than usual with change of seasons and there were a decent number of boards that were cracked once they sat in the shop for a while.

Also, to get the best ray fleck really pay attention to the endgrain.  Some pieces that were just 5 degrees out of perpendicular where pretty boring but when I resawed at perfect quartering on my bandsaw it really popped.  Shellac is awesome for making it standout.  I made a lot of great looking picture frames and used it on the shelves and the bottom of the inside of cherry china cabinets with it to lighten the inside up.

[Dodgy Loner]

Matt, it sounds like there was something wrong with the wood you bought.  I've used a fair amount of sycamore (some quartersawn, some not) and I experienced no problems with it.  It works similarly to yellow poplar, but maybe a little more tearout.  The only reason a 3/4" piece should explode is if it's partially rotted or has severe (and I mean bad) grain runout.

[WoodMiller]

Could it have been dried too fast and too much??

[dad2nine]

Yep Niff said



Well maybe not


Ok done now  :D

[backwoods sawyer]

Sounds like someone over cooked it in a kiln.

[Dave Shepard]

I sawed up about 2000 board feet of sycamore this week with mixed results. Some of it sawed fine, and some of it turned bright red, and split into toothpicks. Very weird. I talked to the person I sawed for last winter and he said that some of it also turned bright red and shattered. It's beautiful stuff, but a very low return of quality qs material.