The American maples constitute a hugely important part of the US hardwood forest resource throughout the eastern and Lake states. They are divided between hard and soft maples, although the latter should perhaps have been called “not so soft” maple, being only about a third less hard than hard maple.

American hard maple (mainly Acer saccharum) is one of the most abundant of all eastern hardwoods, along with the oaks (red and white), and is a highly popular species for quality furniture, flooring and interior joinery. As a cold climate species hard maple is concentrated more in the north-eastern states although its provenance is widespread. The trees grow to 40-60ft in height with relatively small girth from 1-2ft diameter at breast height. Commercially this species is also known as sugar maple, as in syrup, or rock maple, as in very hard.

American hard maple is one of the most abundant of all eastern hardwoods

There are about 13 maple species native to North America, of which six are commercial (see table). Two are hard and four are soft, (including Pacific maple). The separation into two groups is based on the ray width of the timber, which is only visible under a microscope.

The sapwood of hard maple is creamy white, often with a slight reddish brown tinge and the heartwood can vary from light to dark reddish brown. The amount of darker brown heartwood may vary significantly according to growing region. Both sapwood and heartwood can contain pith fleck and normally there is more sapwood than heartwood. The wood has a close fine texture and is generally straight grained, but it can also occur as “curly”, “fiddle-back”, and “bird’s-eye” figure. These variations are caused by apparently random accidental formations of the grain structure (possibly abnormal bud growth) and are highly prized for certain applications, particularly in furniture.

Hard maple dries slowly with a relatively large shrinkage, so it can be susceptible to movement in performance in situations of significant moisture change. Pre-boring is recommended when nailing and screwing. With care it machines well, turns well, glues satisfactorily, and can be stained and polished to an outstanding finish. It is not so hard as to dull the working edges of tools. The wood is heavy and very hard with good strength properties, and in particular it has high resistance to shock, abrasion and wear. It also has good steam bending properties, with high stability and is free of odour and taste. Hard maple is rated as slightly or non-resistant to heartwood decay. The heartwood is resistant to preservative treatment, whereas the sapwood is permeable.

Hard maple has excellent finishing properties

Additional and specialist uses for hard maple include sports floors and bowling alleys, panelling, kitchen cabinets, worktops and table tops, internal stairs, doors, handrails, turnings, and mouldings. Hard maple is also used in musical instruments. It can be used stained as a useful substitute for American black cherry, having a similar grain pattern and equally good finishing properties. By contrast, American soft maple is mainly harvested from Acer rubrum (red maple) and Acer saccharinum (silver maple) of which red maple is by far the most common. They can be considered to have a somewhat misleading commercial name, for although softer than hard maple, they are nonetheless hard. At an average of 4,226 Newtons, soft maple is similar to American black cherry and is considerably harder than several other popular temperate hardwoods.

The harvesting of both hard and soft maple, when undertaken with best management practices on a sustainable basis, poses no threat to the eastern hardwood forests of the US due to their abundance and capacity to regenerate naturally. Maples are increasing in growing volume year on year, over and above the demand as a popular species for US domestic and export consumption. Like many other American hardwoods they have well-established uses in all grades so that the useable yield is high for these species.