Red Maple

I'm using red maple on this Berk's Co. rifle..I kinda let Fred Miller talk me into it..he said if I really wanted a lite-weight 58cal. if was the only way to go. I said I had heard it wouldn't hold an edge for carving, and he assured me it would and said red is what most of the originals were made from. I asked about strength he said it had plenty..etc. I figured he should know so went with the red.
Having almost lived through the flu..I decided to inlet the breech plug..and man is this stuff soft.
It is light, but am having concerns about dings, and type carving to use with it.
Those that have used red..is there any tips I should be aware of before I ruin this stock? I'm not in any way trying to blame Fred for anything, I'm just being extra cautious.
Thanks for any advice.

Just take extra care is all. :thumbsup:

I've used red maple a few times and sugar maple twice ( I'm not a real fast builder ). Any way I like the red, it shows more curl easily it seems, where as I've found the sugar maple is harder to bring it out. With that said, the sugar maple holds an edge better. Also the sugar maple is ALOT more dense than the red maple, thus heavier. I feel that there are trade offs, as you can see.With the red maple you might have to be alittle more careful about dings from moving it around the shop during the building process, BUT they are a good choice for stocks and shouldn't be shyed from. ......George F.

As with any wood, there's hard and soft stuff. I've seen Yellow Pine that was like steel and Oak that was like Styrofoam. A buddy has some Red Maple thats like Sugar Maple, it's so hard. The Red Maple that I used on my last rifle was VERY soft, too soft, in my opinion for gun stocking. This manure was difficult to sand smooth. Be careful and take it slow. Rather than raised (relief) carving, I'd use incised carving. It's a bit tougher to dink up handling. A nicely curled piece of Red Maple is a sight to behold, stained and finished.

Thanks for the tips..I'm all far lighter stocks so will just have to take it extra carefull with the inletting. Far as carving goes... according to Allen Martin's website..the Henry Mauger's decoration is known for being very minimal and a "simple volute incise or floral relief carving is most attractive."
So that's what I'll try to do...but this wood is very soft. I don't think I can smooth an edge with sandpaper. May have to go with more aged look and scrape.
LSU..that's a nice looking flintlock..what did you stain it with?

Hoyt,
I have had both and would rather have White. Here is my first Red that I have built, and it required a lot of sharpening to keep it half way decent.
I'll ask for white in the future.
Craig

hello hoyt i am a logger in michigans u.p. and up here maple is king. i personally cut about a quarter million board feet of logs with a chain saw every year mostly maple and i can tell you that hard maple with nice curl is extremely rare and red maple with nice curl is rare but a lot easier to find than hard maple. that being said i find it hard to believe there were a lot of originals with hard maple stocks. as far as hardness goes red maple can be very hard if it grows slow like in the northern states. i seen a red maple up here that was 12 inches in diameter that was 250 years old no lie this guy that showed it to me sanded it smooth and counted the rings with a magnifying glass now that piece of wood was dense. i have been told that some of our red maple up here is as hard as the hard maple from down south but i cant prove that having never handled southern maple. maybe your stock came from a southern tree. just remember with modern transportation our logs get shipped all over the place but years ago most stocks probably came from within 20 miles away so in the pennsylvania mountains probably pretty slow growing trees. also virgin growth timber was slower growing, now we thin our timber to promote growth probably not as good for relief carving but overall it does make for better quality timber. hope this makes sense.

curly maple.

I just finished an interesting read by Pehr Kalm, a Swedish professor who did an a tour of North America 1747-1750. (Travels into North America [volume 2], (on page 95 actual, page of 100 PDF index) he told of spending the night at a gunsmith's home between New York and Albany on June 21, 1749. "The beft and deareft ftocks for his mufkets were made of the wood of the wild cherry-tree; and next to thefe he valued thofe of the Red maple wood the moft. They fcarce make ufe of any other wood for this purpofe." Said black walnut wood was also good, but did not grow at Albany.
[url] http://www.americanjourneys.org/pdf/AJ-117b.pdf[/url]

I used to insist in sugar maple but do not anymore. I just ask which pieces are "super dense" and stay away from the whole "red maple/sugar maple" debate with providers of stock blanks. Some sugar maple can be awful, punky, brash, and some red maple can cut like buttah but hold up to the chisel. If you are having problems, change the angles on your chisels to be more "fine" and don't take deep stabbing cuts on cross-grain, like at the breech, or the wood will collapse.

Hoyt,

Red Maple is what most of us call Curly Maple.
It is the most common type of figured maple. It is not as dense, or hard as sugar maple, but generally has more tiger stripe figure.
Hardness, or density is a relative thing. While red is not as dense as sugar, it is a very hard wood.
I preferr sugar maple myself, as I do a lot of relief carving, and a hard piece of sugar maple, while harder, is more forgiving and a little easier to get a good finish on. But the REAl STRIPEY figure is still in the red maple.

Hoyt, that's stained with aqua fortis, neautralized with lye solution, then Pilkington's red / brown oil (three coats) followed by Tried and True Varnish Oil.

I avoid red maple like the plague. Most seems soft as poplar. I have a blank here that I MAY make a barn gun out of. It carves nicely and cuts cleanly, but I know it won't "hold" and it would round over and wear off pretty quickly. Often, red maple will be so soft, that the grain is fuzzy, and it is impossible to cut, scrape, or sand it smooth.

You can get red maple that is hard as sugar maple, but don't take anyone's word for it that their particular piece of red maple is hard. See for yourself, in person, before you buy it.

Also, don't confuse density with hardness. Yellow pine is quite dense, but is too soft for stock work. (lead is much denser than steel too....)

200 or more years ago, it was MUCH easier to find good quality wood of any species than it is now. Red maple of 2 centuries ago is not necessarily the equivalent of red maple today...

As to curl, I have found that when staining with Aqua Fortis (why use anything else?) sugar maple curl shows much better than red maple curl does (even though red curl often shows more brilliantly when unfinished). A sugar maple stock, when properly stained and finished, will often show curl more brilliantly than a red maple stock will, even if it was graded higher.