# Some sort of maple?



## JR Custom Calls (Sep 10, 2015)

My wife is pretty awesome. She saw some wood on the side of the road today and grabbed a bunch. I can't, for the life of me, figure out what it is. Bark looks like 'river maple' that we have here, but the wood doesn't look anything like the river maple I've cut up in the past. Reminds me a whole lot of sycamore, but the quartersawn figure doesn't, nor does the bark. I know my end grain pics aren't up to snuff for you @phinds, but I got just as close as I could. Kind of regretting selling my macro lens now. FWIW, it's really wet, which made the end grain shot blotchy.














http://i1024.Rule #2/albums/y306/jrcustomcalls/852A8E25-CA4A-4715-862D-7EA986AE087B_zpsks3dj0xd.jpg 

http://i1024.Rule #2/albums/y306/jrcustomcalls/B45F9CE9-16F4-4F79-9487-BAD3CDC53706_zpsy1s2bddy.jpg

Reactions: Like 2


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## Mr. Peet (Sep 10, 2015)

Red maple also known as soft maple, _Acer rubra_.

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## Nature Man (Sep 10, 2015)

I don't know what the species is, but I do know you have a great wife if she is willing to pick up log rounds for you!!! Chuck

Reactions: Agree 4


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## JR Custom Calls (Sep 10, 2015)

Mr. Peet said:


> Red maple also known as soft maple, _Acer rubra_.


Thanks, Mark. Can't say that I've cut up any red maple, so that explains completely why I didn't recognize it. 




Nature Man said:


> I don't know what the species is, but I do know you have a great wife if she is willing to pick up log rounds for you!!! Chuck



Yeah, she's pretty awesome. And, it wasn't just a couple. There's a big pile of it!

Reactions: Way Cool 1


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## phinds (Sep 11, 2015)

Jonathan, that second pic looks exactly like SOME kind of maple, and I defer to Mark's ID of red maple.

As for the flakes looking like sycamore, well, not quite. It may be possible for sycamore to have flakes that are so consistently long and yet also so consistently skinny and tightly packed, but I don't think I've ever seen any, and it's very common in several of the maples and you also see it sometimes in American black cherry.

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## JR Custom Calls (Sep 11, 2015)

Here's the rest of it. I was very surprised she picked this up. Some has started to spalt, so I'm going to put it in my milling pile where everything spalts, and see what happens.

Reactions: Like 1


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## NYWoodturner (Sep 11, 2015)

Looks like sycamore to me.


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## JR Custom Calls (Sep 11, 2015)

NYWoodturner said:


> Looks like sycamore to me.


I kept thinking it looked like a cross between sycamore and river maple. But the quartersawn figure doesn't look at all like sycamore, and the bark is spot on for maple.


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## Mr. Peet (Sep 11, 2015)

Still looks like soft maple...and if she keeps it up, you'll have a winter supply of arts and craft stock as well as heat supplies...good wife in deed.


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## phinds (Sep 11, 2015)

NYWoodturner said:


> Looks like sycamore to me.


Scott, what is it about it that makes it look like sycamore to you? The bark? The ray flakes?


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## NYWoodturner (Sep 12, 2015)

Both the bark and the ray flakes. That pinkish color just under the bark says sycamore maple though... (Acer pseudoplatanus) Never knew it existed until I looked it up


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## JR Custom Calls (Sep 12, 2015)

Fwiw... With a pice of sycamore...


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## phinds (Sep 12, 2015)

NYWoodturner said:


> Both the bark and the ray flakes. That pinkish color just under the bark says sycamore maple though... (Acer pseudoplatanus) Never knew it existed until I looked it up


Ah, well that explains it. "Sycamore" is just the name used in England for what we would call harewood and as you now know, it is not actually a sycamore. In fact the specific epithet MEANS "false sycamore" since Platanus is the genus for what we in the US call sycamore.

There's a discussion of various similar woods and the confusion among their names at:

http://hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/_discussion_sycamore.htm


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