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| Red Maple |
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What is ambrosia maple? The dictionary defines ambrosia as anything imparting divinity. While ambrosia
maple is a beautiful wood, it does not come from heaven, but is simply our native red maple tree, which
has been attacked by an insect. The ambrosia beetle bores through the wood of the living tree leaving behind a fungus. This fungus stains the wood in colors ranging from dark brown to light gray. A cross section of an infected tree would show oval shaped stains radiating out from the center in a star shape pattern. The red maple has the greatest distribution of any tree growing on the east-coast and is found from Newfoundland to south Florida and west to eastern Texas. It can be found growing in almost any habitat from moist soils of stream banks or wetlands to mixed hardwood forests and dry ridges. In our area it can commonly be found growing in yards or as street trees. Red leafed maple trees are not of the red maple species. Red maples have dull green leaves 21/2" to 4" long and almost as wide. The leaves have three shallow short-pointed lobes, exhibit a wavy saw-toothed edge and have five main veins from the base. Underneath the leaves are white and hairy. During autumn the leaves turn red, orange and yellow. The red maple's bark is gray, thin and smooth. With age the bark will fissure into long scaly ridges. Small red flowers appear in clusters in early spring, before the leaves. A mature tree will be 60 to 90 feet tall and 30 inches in diameter. Red maple is classified as a soft maple, but is about 5% to 7% denser than other soft maples. It has a wide sapwood that is white in color and a light brown heartwood that sometimes has faint gray, green or purplish hue. The wood has a fine texture and is close grained. The Woods of The World CD-ROM states that 76 out of 100 turned pieces yielded fair to excellent results. Curly and wavy grain is sometimes present as are burls. With a tangential to radial shrinkage ratio of 2.05, red maple dries easily with only minimal warp or splitting. Red maple does not sand well and will take extra care and time to remove sanding marks from previous grits. As with most maples, any finish should work well with red maple. I have tried thinned polyurethane and modified tung oil. Both have given me good results though they tend to yellow and darken the light colored portions of the wood. Lacquer would be a good choice to retain the natural color of the wood. Red maple is a common tree with good turning wood. But if the ambrosia beetle has attacked it, a unique wood with some striking patterns can develop. If someone offers you a piece, snatch it up and turn away. |