Is there a “right” or a “wrong” species of maple for use in kitchen cabinet face frames and panels?
I’ve got a sample of curly maple that looks beautiful (found it at Woodcraft), and I think that something like it would make great looking faceframes for our cabinets, but lately have read that curly maple is “rare”, “in great demand” and therefore difficult to find (and excessively expensive when you do find it), and “difficult to work without tearout”.
I can’t ask my local hardwood supplier since there appears to be no hobbyist-friendly hardwood supplier here in Louisville. That means that I’ll have to order my wood from an on-line supplier.
Since I’ve never ordered maple before, but need to to start my kitchen project, I’m a little confused.
Am I making this harder than it really is, or am I just having the “yips” prior to actually ordering the wood and cutting chips?
Mike D
Replies
For furniture and cabinetry, most woodworker probably prefer "soft maple" -- its grain pattern is more visable. For flooring and cutting boards, hard maple for durability.
The curly stuff is of the soft variety as I recall, as is "Ambrosia" maple.
Support our Troops. Bring them home. Now. And pray that at least some of the buildings in the green zone have flat roofs, with a stairway.
I'm currently building kitchen cabs using hard maple for the face frames and door components. Other opinions are sure to differ but I prefer hard maple for this application. Figure such as curl, tiger stripe or birds eye can be found in both types. I think a nice look could be achieved by using the curly maple for door panels and regular grain for the other components.
Hi Mike:
I ordered some QSWO from this place and found it a good experience. I had paid $9.10 a board foot from Rockler locally (Seattle) and got a 20 bf hobby pack from this web site http://www.internetlumber.com/lumber/Lumber-Bundles for about $.4.50 a board foot with free shipping and no local sales tax. This link is for bigger quantities which gets you a better price but you pay shipping.
Bill
Curly maple is not cheap but it's not all that rare and not that hard to obtain. It IS a britch to work as tearout is ever present, but I've used it nonetheless and filled it with transparent grain fill to produce glass-like surfaces. I like it because on something like a door frame, it has a strong character and presence. I might consider using it in a kitchen cabinet setting on the door frames, and leaving the face frames a simpler plain maple. Sock in some ebony or purpleheart pegs, and man, you got yerself a dy-no-mite look.
Hi Mike,
Curly maple would be a beautiful choice, albeit an expensive one. And you would need to have properly tuned equipment, preferable helix cutterhead jointer and/or planer. Or a thickness sander. Otherwise, you may have some (possibly significant) tearout problems. Should you decide to go this route, I would make the face frames out of regular unfigured maple, and the doors out of curly maple (rails,stiles, and panels). Most of the face frame will be hidden by the door depending on the amount of overlay you decide on.
As far as the difference between hard and soft maple: Usually hard maple is about $1 a board foot more than soft maple. Here soft maple is $3.19, hard maple is $4.35. In my opinion, soft maple stains up a little nicer than hard maple. Hard maple doesn't seem to absorb as much stain, so it can be hard to get a nice, rich color. I also feel soft maple is a little easier to machine than hard maple. About 70% of the kitchens I do are soft maple, 10% are cherry, and about 20% are painted. People usually do not want to spend the extra cash on cherry, and with the right technique, soft maple can be made to resemble something a little nicer. Gel stains by bartley and general finishes work very well with maple and stain very evenly.
I am sure this next comment is sure to inflame the "professionals" here: Oak has been in a steady decline as a choice of wood for kitchen cabinets for the last 10 years or so. I have not even had a request for oak in the last 2 years. There is nothing wrong with oak, it just is not as popular as it was in the 70's and 80's.
I am enclosing pics of one of the last jobs I did, the cabinets are soft maple with a gel stain. They actually look much better in person, as I am photographically challenged ;)
Lee
A disclaimer about the kitchen photos:
In the first pic (1204) the panel on the back of the sink (bar) was not my idea. I prefer to use a raised panel for that application. The contractor and I talked it over extensively before I started the job, and he wanted to sheetrock the wall and paint, and leave it at that to save money. Well, after I delivered the cabinets he decided he wanted something a little nicer that went with the cabinets. He couldn't live with my lead time for a set of raised panels, so his idea was the outcome. It's not horrible, but not the best looking idea either.
Lee
Hi mapleman,
Maybe you've done this already but try using an aniline dye on maple. I'm not a finishing expert by a long shot, but I've had pretty good success with dyes on maple. Nice deep, rich colors. All the custom cabinet shops in my area send out their work prefinished , so to stay competitive I've had to figure out a respectable finish. Nice work!
Paul
Hi Paul,
Thanks for the kind words. I have begun to experiment with using dye as an undercoat, with a wiping or gel stain on top. Gives a really nice effect. I haven't tried using the dye only yet. I am trying to find something nice and rich that can be sprayed, to eliminate the hand work involved with a wiping stain (to stay competitive, and save time). Hopefully the dye will fit the bill. BTW, what brand of dye are you using?
Lee
Nice cabs.............Which brand of gel stain do you prefer?********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
Hi Nikki,
I think the General brand colors are a little more intense/darker than the Bartley. I do use some of the bartley colors on occasion. Mostly general.
Lee
For years I have been using the gel stains from Woodcote. But for some inexplicable reason they recently more than doubled their prices -- so a 12 oz container is now $18 plus tax, and this is the wholesale price I pay from my paint supplier. Bartley's is really not available around here, and my supplier sells the Old Master's brand -- but that does not work nearly as well as the Woodkote stains. Even though the General Finishes gel stain is sold only at Woodcraft and Rockler in this area, I will give it a try -- since it is still cheaper than Woodkote. Thanks for the tip.********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
Nikki,
No problem. I live in the middle of BFE, so everything I buy has to be mail-order and shipped in. I have bought the general gel stain from Woodcraft and Woodworkers supply. I signed up for the "pro discount" from woodworkers supply and get quarts for about $12-$13, as opposed to the $16 sticker price. But if you have a local store that carries it, it's probably easier to get it local even if it's a little more.
Cheers,
Lee
I use J. E. Moser's water soluble aniline dye. It's a little easier to control than the alcohol based equivalent.
Paul
Hi Mapleman, thanks for the input.Is tiger stripe as prone to tear out as curly maple? It has nice figure as well, and would fit the ticket nicely if I can successfully work it. As SWMBO is adamant that the cabinets be naturally finished, but as light as possible, I may go the figured hard maple route (I've read that hard maple is lighter than soft maple). I'll do a few test boards first to be sure that enough figure shows via clear finish that it's worth the extra cost.The advise on using figured material only for the door frames, and using un-figured maple for the face frames is a great one - I'd not thought of doing that.Mike D
Edited 5/10/2007 7:45 pm ET by Mike_D
Mike,
Concerning the "tiger stripe" - most people, myself included lump the terms curly, tiger, and fiddleback into the same category. Some people use the fiddleback term for strictly quartersawn material, some use fiddleback or tiger to describe hard maple vs curly for soft maple. Just depends on who you are buying the stock from. So, in a nutshell, tigerstripe is as prone to tearout as curly, or, figured hard maple is as prone to tear out as figured soft maple. There are a few ways around the tearout - some wet the wood before the final passes through the planer, with very light bites. I had my dewalt planer knives ground with a back bevel to steepen the cutting angle a few degrees - which helped tremendously.
Do I find hard maple to be lighter in color than soft maple? Not at all. It can be hard to tell the difference some times. The soft maple I get from my local supplier is 90% white 1 face or better. Personally I would not mix hard and soft maple on the same piece. Provided you use the same on the whole job, I think you would be hard pressed to spend the extra money on the hard maple. That's just my opinion. If anything, hard maple can get a little more creamy tan than soft maple. If you can get something like the 90% white 1 face stock like I get, you should have no problems getting the"lightest color possible" such as you describe.
As far as the figure goes, supposedly curly/tiger figure is much rarer in hard maple than soft. For example: I was in Pennsylvania a few years ago and stopped in at Hearne Hardwoods and bought some figured stock for some jewelry boxes I was working on. Curly soft maple was $9.00 b/f. I bought a piece of curly hard maple (looked the same as the soft maple to me) for $15 b/f.
If you have any more questions, or you need any more help, just drop a line. Glad to help if I can. I am enclosing a pic of a kitchen in tiger (curly) maple. I wish I could claim it as my own, but it's not, I just keep it for inspiration.
Lee
Wow! That is beautiful!Thanks for taking the time to further educate me in the many ways of Maple.Mike D
Mike D
the answer to your question is,.... It depends!
If you go to Grizzly's web site and look on page 367 of their catalog starts about $25.00 a bd.ft. and goes up to around $175.00 per board ft. I've seen higher prices!
On the other hand I bought about 2000 bd.ft of mostly curly (fiddleback is another name for it) hard maple for 10 cents a bd.ft.
Yeh, you read that right a dime a bd.ft.
I use it for everything visable in my house..
As for working it, I haven't had any tear out with mine but I keep my equipment pretty sharp. I love working with it and keep looking for the special piece to put in exactly the right spot.. There is an art to doing this.. you have to cut pieces exactly the right way to get the best figure and there really is an up and down, left and right..
It's your call, the results are spectacular and well worth the effort but to have someone else sort out the fiddleback for you suddenly nmakes the price scary to me..
As noted before curly maple is not rare. In fact my suppliers do not even charge extra for it. The expensive curly maple is of a specific type and size. Typically boards that have figure across 8" and down 4 feet or more cost extra. But if you go to a lumber yard you will find a bin of S2S boards that have figure for the same price as the regular stock. Remember that the figure is a "defect" for 95% of all applications. If I am building a kitchen out of maple and I get a figured board in the bundle I can call up the supplier and ask for them to replace it. The lumber yards usually find the figured boards when they are milling rough lumber for S4S cabinet stock. As soon as the figured board hits the planing head you can hear it. When this happens they pull that board out of the bundle and throw it into the figured bin. I regularly buy at three suppliers here in Dallas, Texas and they all have a figured Maple bin. The only bad thing is that the boards have usually already been planed and will have a lot of chipout. By the time you remove the chipout you will likely have a board that is a 16th under 3/4". For face frames this is fine, but doors need to be as thick as possible. Also the boards will tend to have patches of figure 2 to 4 inches wide and a few feet long. Most of it will not be the perfect, consistent figure of select stock, but you will not need that for cabinets. Most face frames are 2 to 3 inches wide and crowded with doors, so perfect figure is unnecessary. For the doors you want to use the thicker, nicer boards, and there will be some of those in the bin as well.
DO NOT BUY AT ROCKLERS. Rocklers is a great place for the new hobbyist to shop. They have all types of cool gadgets and most of the machines and supplies you could need. But their lumber prices tend to be ridiculous. I have seen regular Maple marked at 2$ a board foot higher that the listed price (not my discounted price) of the local lumber yards.
You state that the lumber yards are not "hobbyist friendly". They usually do not have a lot of patience to explain everything to a hobbyist and spend two hours on a $100 sell. Remember most cabinet shops call in $1,000 orders without spending more than 5 minutes on the phone. But if you know exactly what you want, how much you need, and how to ask for it they will be happy to help you. They just don't usually like to spend the time to chit-chat about the typical hobbyist related topics.
How do you ask? First you need to know exactly how much lumber you need in board feet. You have to already factor in your waste, since you probably don't know what your waste will be go with 25% of the usable board feet. Then ask to go and look at the curly maple bin, or go to the maple bin and start digging. You will have to tally how many board feet of usable curly stock there is on each board. Like I said these boards will not likely have figure through out the face. And finally, depending on you luck you will possibly have to return 2 or 3 times to get all that you need. I have been able to get enough for 20 feet of upper and lower cabinets with two visits.
I hope you follow through with this, it is not very often that I see cabinets made from nice woods. There more that is out there the easier it is to sell.
Pardon my spelling,
Mike
Make sure that your next project is beyond your skill and requires tools you don't have. You won't regret it.
Hi Mike,A always look forward to reading your answers to posts, as they are usually full of easy to understand and useful information.Thanks for the tutorial on curly maple and on buying from a pro lumber shop. A great insight!Mike D
I'm blushing!
I really hope that you build your kitchen with curly maple. I have yet to get a customer to be willing to go for anything more exciting than a top notch paint grade finish. It is usually maple, Oak, or knotty alder. Pardon my spelling,
Mike
Make sure that your next project is beyond your skill and requires tools you don't have. You won't regret it.
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