Maple Quality

A

Agent17

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
*not sure if I posted in the 'best' category so I just re-posted in machinery and supplies. sorry*

Can somebody please explain the preferred grades of maple for american pool cues?

I have used lots of maple myself, buying in boards and just picking the bits I like.

But i keep reading about 'old growth' maple and various other terms.

I would appreciate an 'idiots' guide to the maple you guys use. I'm really not sure what it is you look for.

Also, a link to the suppliers, sawmills direct preferably or maybe specialist small suppliers, who can provide specific quality.

I would also like to source finest quality straight grain ash and would appreciate some info if anyone has it.

Many thanks.
 
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Cuemakers & other craftsmen are not too willing to give up their hard earned knowledge about suppliers. It takes years to find & develop a relationship with suppliers. I think you might do better to GOOGLE these questions & find suppliers on your own. GOOD LUCK...JER
 
BLACKHEARTCUES said:
Cuemakers & other craftsmen are not too willing to give up their hard earned knowledge about suppliers. It takes years to find & develop a relationship with suppliers. I think you might do better to GOOGLE these questions & find suppliers on your own. GOOD LUCK...JER
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I understand that of course.

I have dealt with many suppliers over the years, mostly european based, but wondered if there were specialists that I don't know about.

It certainly won't affect me if nobody knows, or is willing to speak, but it's worth asking I think.

Nevertheless, my questions about maple quality in general still remain.

Can you shed some light on that please?

I am just trying to understand a little more about u.s.a. 'terminology' and player/maker requirements.

Thanks.
 
Maple

Eric Crisp (Sugartree) has posted some excellent material on maple several years
ago. There is a lot of info on this subject on this forum. The "search" will
bring up all this info with a little work.
 
A short list for me would consist of:
>Properly dried, as in not case hardened
>straight grained
> clear and to your preferance of colour(Some makers believe the darker maple is more dense)
>grain density
> Tonal quality( which can relate to colour and density)
> Price and availability
The expierience you gain by picking through lifts of lumber and going through the process of cutting squares and turning till final product is priceless. Even if it comes at the cost of making a few mistakes. IMHO
 
American pool cue makers use different grades of maple for different purposes. Maple is preferred in our craft because it is strong and stable, yet inexpensive. Maple results in consistently hitting cues that are somewhere around the industry norm 19 ounces in weight.

- Straight-grained maple with less than 10 growth rings per inch is used for structural purposes only such as forearm cores, handles and tenons.
- Straight-grained maple with more than 10 rpi are used for shafts.
- Bird's eye, curly, and all other forms of non-straight-grained maple are used for decoration such as forearms and inlays. Usually, the more wild the grain, the more we want it!

"Old growth" basically means the wood came from a forest that was planted by God and hasn't been messed with by man or fire until it was cut down. These forests are also known as "virgin" forests. When a forest burns down or is cleared by man and re-grows, it's known as a 2nd growth forest or regenerated forest. (No, I'm not saying man is evil for cutting down trees.)

Is old growth wood better than regenerated wood? I highly doubt it, but somebody out there will disagree with me. My personal opinion is I don't care where the wood came from as long as the wood is stable, strong, and meets my definition of "looks good".
 
jschelin99 said:
American pool cue makers use different grades of maple for different purposes. Maple is preferred in our craft because it is strong and stable, yet inexpensive. Maple results in consistently hitting cues that are somewhere around the industry norm 19 ounces in weight.

- Straight-grained maple with less than 10 growth rings per inch is used for structural purposes only such as forearm cores, handles and tenons.
- Straight-grained maple with more than 10 rpi are used for shafts.
- Bird's eye, curly, and all other forms of non-straight-grained maple are used for decoration such as forearms and inlays. Usually, the more wild the grain, the more we want it!

"Old growth" basically means the wood came from a forest that was planted by God and hasn't been messed with by man or fire until it was cut down. These forests are also known as "virgin" forests. When a forest burns down or is cleared by man and re-grows, it's known as a 2nd growth forest or regenerated forest. (No, I'm not saying man is evil for cutting down trees.)

Is old growth wood better than regenerated wood? I highly doubt it, but somebody out there will disagree with me. My personal opinion is I don't care where the wood came from as long as the wood is stable, strong, and meets my definition of "looks good".
Click to expand...

Thank you. That is very helpful.

To clarify, would anyone be able to tell if maple is old growth on a finished cue?

I was assuming it may have a certain look/colour and have a lot of growth rings, indicating slow growth, and therefore possibly be 'superior' in terms of playability.

Do any makers think this is true?
 
QMAKER said:
Eric Crisp (Sugartree) has posted some excellent material on maple several years
ago. There is a lot of info on this subject on this forum. The "search" will
bring up all this info with a little work.
Click to expand...

I searched for Sugartree and Eric Crisp in users list and could not find him.
 
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cuejo said:
Try qbuilder
Click to expand...

I did last night, could not find any comments about maple in general.

Does anyone have a link to a relevant thread?

If not, the question remains:

Agent17 said:
To clarify, would anyone be able to tell if maple is old growth on a finished cue?

I was assuming it may have a certain look/colour and have a lot of growth rings, indicating slow growth, and therefore possibly be 'superior' in terms of playability.

Do any makers think this is true?
Click to expand...
 
Yes, some makers do believe old growth wood is superior. Some charge astonishing prices for it. A study done by the US Forestry Service on hickory revealed that, in hickory at least, strength was greatest not on the highest or lowest ring count wood, but somewhere in the middle (twelvish).
 
Lexicologist71 said:
Yes, some makers do believe old growth wood is superior. Some charge astonishing prices for it. A study done by the US Forestry Service on hickory revealed that, in hickory at least, strength was greatest not on the highest or lowest ring count wood, but somewhere in the middle (twelvish).
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Thanks for your input.

I've been researching this elsewhere and most times it seems that old growth maple is stuff that sunk in rivers or lakes and has been there 100 years or more. Then brought to the surface and dried. Apparently, being submerged for all that time somehow makes it stronger. And darker.
 
Agent17 said:
Thanks for your input.

I've been researching this elsewhere and most times it seems that old growth maple is stuff that sunk in rivers or lakes and has been there 100 years or more. Then brought to the surface and dried. Apparently, being submerged for all that time somehow makes it stronger. And darker.
Click to expand...
Not quite.
It's the age of those trees before they were chopped that make them harder.
 
old growth

What you are talking about is "lake wood", which is "old growth" because of it's age(in the forest where it was cut) not because it was submerged.
An "old growth" forest is one which has never been cut. The trees are often larger because they were allowed to grow longer.
The wood is sometimes a higher ring count because the trees were tightly packed in the forest, causing them to grow more slowly due to limited light and other resources.

Robin Snyder
 
Agent17 said:
Thanks.

I found this an interesting read:

http://www.desertrosebanjo.com/oldwood.html
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Very interesting.

I have a cue Paul Dayton made several years ago with a shaft made of salvaged wood. The shaft has a big fat, stiff taper (nice!), right at 13mm, but it is not a heavy shaft, in fact is lighter than you would expect for a shaft with these dimensions. It plays most excellently, with a nice tone. Also, after much abuse by the previous owner, car trunks in the summer etc., it is still straight as a string after 10 years or so.

I also have some salvaged wood which I bought for shafts a few years ago. I never used it for shafts because, when I received it, it had more figure in it than many decorative woods...not shaft material at all.
But it's interesting stuff none the less. It is very hard and HEAVY!!, about as heavy as purpleheart, which is to say, 20% or so heavier than the maple I usually use. It smells terrible when turned. Paul told me that his shaft wood smelled bad too, and I had heard that for years elsewhere.

So it could be that one was just harder maple than the other, but they sure seem like different animals to me. One, the shaft Paul made, seems to have been acted upon by microbes while submerged which removed part of it's substance, as mentioned in the article presented by Agent 17, while the other, the heavy one, seems to almost not be wood any more!!, I presume by action of deposited minerals(??????). The dowel stayed straight a couple years so I used it for a core dowel. The cue, an all ebony plane jane, had very good tone, for what it's worth.

What's it all mean? Beats me, but both flavors are certainly interesting.

Robin
 
Actually, I think the answer lays in the drying. From other stuff I have researched, the submerged stuff should not be allowed to air dry AT ALL, because, for a reason I can't remember right down, it breaks down in some way. This could explain the 'non wood', wrongly dried.

I have read that it must be dried unlike normal timber, and if done correctly, it is stronger and more stable than any 'unsubmerged' wood.

Now, does anyone know where I can get some to test myself?
 
why??

Do you really want to do this?
Although I like the one shaft I have made of this (light) material, the shafts made of the hard, heavy stuff I've run into (2) played like purpleheart shafts, but worse. Too stiff and heavy.
It's not for no reason that people have been using plain hard maple shafts for literally hundreds of years.
Why do you suppose every single cue on AZ right now has a maple shaft, with the exception of break cues? There are probably hundreds of years of experience on this forum right now...these guys have tried a lot of stuff.
I think the whole sunken wood thing is old hat and if it was good, everyone would do it. It's no secret.

Robin
 
Agent17 said:
Actually, I think the answer lays in the drying. From other stuff I have researched, the submerged stuff should not be allowed to air dry AT ALL, because, for a reason I can't remember right down, it breaks down in some way. This could explain the 'non wood', wrongly dried.

I have read that it must be dried unlike normal timber, and if done correctly, it is stronger and more stable than any 'unsubmerged' wood.

Now, does anyone know where I can get some to test myself?
Click to expand...
Sunken wood ?
Google Timeless Timber.
 
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