The Forestry Forum

I'm lining up a contract milling job for this weekend.

Customer is asking for QS Maple.

I've searched the archive for QS Maple but no luck.

Is flat sawn maple a more desirable grain pattern than QS maple.

In the end I'll saw what ever the customer wants, but I also want to educate him as well, I do not want to leave him with 4mbf of a product he does not like.




Thanks for any guidance.



Mark

My vote is FLAT :)

what's he doing with it, Mark?

instrument builders like 1/4 sawn everything.  he might be using it for flooring too.

I've not seen Qsawn maple,Flat sawn is the only maple, hard or soft
I've been asked to saw.Can't imagine much ray in Qsawn.

Dutchman

I'm a fan of qsawn everything even cherry and walnut.  I like straight grained wood alot.  that being said I qsawed some soft maple and didn't like it much at all.  My.02 if for flat.

Since you have that swinger cut him a few q's and see if he likes it. 

another vote for flat on the soft maple
never seen much market around here for soft maple other than rough building

I have a customer who likes his maple QS as well. Closest thing I can relate it to is that it's like sycamore in two respects. 1: It does have a fleck pattern that resembles the pattern of QS sycamore but it is much smaller in scale. You have to look close to see it, but it's there. 2: It has to be truly QS to achieve that result, as does sycamore. Not as forgiving as oak in producing the pattern.

I would talk to the customer, though. As I mentioned, my customer likes QS because of the look. I've also dealt with many begining woodworkers who read in a book that QS is more stable and figure that's what they want without understanding how bland it can look. They also don't understand that it takes a large diameter log to be able to effectively QS.

All we have ever cut is flat.

Sawing hard maple right now and have cut a few qs boards due to how the cant is worked down and there isn't anything special to it at all.