This Will Be Fun To Plane

[HomerLee]

The Willamette Valley in Oregon is in the heart of big leaf maple country, from which we get a lot of highly figured wood. I've been blessed for a number of years to have access to all the fire wood I want to cut. It's free, a good friend has a large farm with a heavily forested 15 acres, mostly oak with a fair amount of big leaf maple. I only cut maple when it is in the way or needs to be cleaned up. My wood cutting partner and I cut down dead or dying trees and clean up what has fallen, for which the landowner is grateful. Anyway, I said that to tell about this: Its interesting to find some curly maple where you can see how it formed.

I split a piece of maple, the bark fell off and revealed this:



And a side view:



I can imagine there is a lot of internal stress in the piece. Appears to have developed the figure by being forced to bend as it grew.
Now I'm wondering what quilted maple looks like in the wild.

[Paul K. Murphy]

That is quilted maple. Your lumber is radial. You need to saw that tangentially to reveal the quilt.

[MichaelMouse]

That is quilted maple. Your lumber is radial. You need to saw that tangentially to reveal the quilt.

Yup, figure on quarter is curl, on face grain, quilted.  I have reasonable success with either York pitch or low angle.  The worst curl wants a toothed blade first.

[EricU]

I have a pile of that stuff.  For acoustic guitars, curl is better.  Never seen it on the log before, thanks for the pics.

[HomerLee]

Michael wrote:

Yup, figure on quarter is curl, on face grain, quilted.  I have reasonable success with either York pitch or low angle.  The worst curl wants a toothed blade first.

So you are saying that the same log will yield either curly or quilted lumber depending on how it is sawn? Interesting.

[Bibliophile 13]

I've found that planing directly across the grain (transverse planing) works as well as anything to minimize tearout. You finish up with a well-tuned smoother going with the grain--inasmuch as there IS a "with the grain" in curly/quilted wood. And I know we all love our handplanes here, but sanding is usually a good option on highly figured stuff.

[Paul K. Murphy]

To reveal quilted figure in that log, plainsaw it.
Quartersawing wood of that type does not reveal the quilt.
I like the piece you've got, I like it real well, but your cut was ~ 90* from where you needed it to be.

[MichaelMouse]

Michael wrote:

So you are saying that the same log will yield either curly or quilted lumber depending on how it is sawn? Interesting.

Reveal rather than yield.  Like Q-sawing white oak reveals the ray figure, which is there, even if unseen.