I found this piece of maple in amongst some pieces that I collected several years ago. Maple is not something I have any experience with. Is this grain pattern what is referred to as quilted? I was looking for a piece to make a cutting board, but I am not sure that is the best use for a grain like this. The pictures show the piece as sanded and then with some mineral oil to pop the grain. If i oil this piece it probably won’t have much luster, so the alternative is to make it some sort of serving piece and finish it with something with a glossy finish. Thoughts, advice and comments are most welcome
Hi Bill. That piece is most definitely quilted or “marbled” maple. Don’t waste it on a cutting board! You might want to use it for the top of a box or something else where you’re looking at a larger piece of wood to show off the complex grain pattern. If it is thick enough, you might even want to slice it for book-matched inlay.
Finish could be whatever product you like, but I would probably lean toward glossy to accentuate the grain.
Beautiful piece. Let’s see what you can do with it!
Thanks for the reply. I took your advice and set the piece aside for now. The board is just short of 2" thick, but the quilting only goes about 3/4 to 1" deep on one side.
I grabbed another board from the pile and ran it across the jointer, this is what I got. The picture doesn’t show well, but there is a feather like detail on one end and kind of a rolling wave type grain across the face. The grain goes through the entire piece which is just short of 2" thick
Don’t necessarily judge how deep the quilting goes based on the end grain. You might be surprised that it goes deeper or there may even be a different grain pattern partway through. If you have 2 inches to work with, I would seriously consider splitting it on the bandsaw for possible book-matching. At worst case, that could give you some nice three-quarter inch thick pieces. You might be as nervous as a diamond cutter, but heck, this is a hobby, lol.
Bill, I see the second piece is showing some tear out. It’s a beautiful wood, but it requires, as you likely know, that the tools have really sharp edge…birdseye maple is somewhat in that domain. Best of luck.
Thanks for the reply. The tear out is mostly my impatience at work. The wood that I get is mostly saw mill rough and weathered on the faces so I plane or joint it to get a look at what I am dealing with. I can’t really see the grain before I take the first pass or two. If the piece is nice, I take a little more care after that.
Most of the pieces I get have an edge with 45 deg angle. I assume that this is from quarter sawing, which I don’t understand. My high school geometry remnants say that any cut through a circle is at some point perpendicular to a line through the center, so I am not sure what the point is. I am finding that in some cases the edge grain is much more interesting than the face grain because of this.
Just btw I have picked up a lot of fairly plain grain maple pieces in various sizes and storage is becoming a little cramped. Most of it is 2 1/4 thick or better. It has been air drying in my shed for up to 3 years and is somewhere around 10-11% moisture. I would be happy to share if anybody would like some.
