Innerspace ID 3

[Jeff]

Identify this tree.

Picture 1:

[Tom]

White Oak?  8)

[L. Wakefield]

   Sugar maple?   lw

[Jeff]

No and No

[craigc90]

Aspen

[Saki]

cottonwood?

[L. Wakefield]

   Jeff, just looking at the relative size of the print on the No and (micro) no you used. I'd've thought it was a mistake but...I've tapped a LOT of maples, and that really looks like the platelike bark of a maple. Is it, perchance, one of the maples, if not sugar maple as I had guessed prev.?  lw

[CHARLIE]

Looks like a closeup shot of an alligator!

[Tillaway]

I'm with Charlie on this one.  How did you get so close? ;) :D

[Corley5]

Why did you get so close??   ;D

[DanG]

Kinda looks like a petrified Cro-Magnon pulpwood cutter, with sagging pectorals. :

[RobK]

Beech?

[CHARLIE]

Box Elder.....or ......Silver Maple

[Jeff]

Sorry to keep you all hanging on this one. I have to give it to L.W. again. This is Red Maple, or locally we just refer to it as soft Maple. An under used and under appreciated wood as far as I am concerned. Always lumped in under the category of
"Less desirable species"

Here are pics 2 and 3 in this series.

[Don P]

I got a chance to talk with some folks at the show who were trying to remedy that problem of underutilization of such an abundant species.
Researchers from Michigan Technological University, boy I hope I remembered that right, and the Forest Products Labs are working on using red maple in engineered building products such as trusses and I joists, like we were talking about recently. In testing the trusses they have manufactured thus far have been 10% stiffer and 29% stronger than comparable SPF trusses...these things also hold onto the gang nail plates so tenaciously that the plates tear before they let go of the wood, SPF never does that. Can't wait to see the dividends of this research, think of the implications on many "trash" species. From pallet stock to a true high value product 8)

[L. Wakefield]

   Well, hardee har har,. buckos!  I've always been a stout defender of red oak (I got that 'stout' part down OK, specially in the winter months..). My husband always says that same type of stuff about red maple- 'swamp maple' they call it here. Says it never lives long, always forks, crotch wood is lousy, soft, yata yata. I defend it as being ALMOST as good as the sugar maple for sap- never noticed that much difference in the final product.. (of course I've tapped silver maples too..)- and the habit of growth is just not THAT poor that I've seen- but I didn't have this piece of info about the strength and tenacity of the wood.

   I suspect, tho, that to carry my point we'd just have to cut-n-try. Maybe soon..   lw

[Bro. Noble]

LW,

In our part of the country they used to tap the Maple's poor cousin Box Elder for syrup.  Poor people, poor ways.

Noble

[Jeff]

When I was young we use to spend most Sunday afternoons at my grandma Harless's house in Shepherd MI. They are known far and wide for thier Maple syrup festival. I can remember the taps and buckets in grandma's trees, and in every tree up every street. We use to ride the sap wagon and help dump buckets.

A couple years ago I returned to my grandmas old house after 20 years to see what it looked like now. I was surprised to find that those Maples in front of her house were still there but now they were Box Elders.

[CHARLIE]

Down South we didn't do no tap for syrup, we squeezed for our syrup. DanG good syrup too. Use to chew on the cane too. You Yanks couldn't chew on a Maple now couldja. ;D