flyingsquirrelinlay - Posted - 05/19/2018:  05:58:05

Apropos of nothing, what "kind" of maple in used in the rim and/or neck. I can think of at least four types of maple: Which one is preferred?

Ken LeVan - Posted - 05/19/2018:  06:43:27

The "musical maple" is red maple acer rubrum. It's the North American cousin of the European maple used to make Stradivarius violins and has been used for musical instruments ever since.

The rim and neck of banjos do different things and you want different attributes, but red maple works in both cases;  for the neck and bridge, it has excellent acoustical qualities, capable of producing a complex and expressive sound, just as in violins. It has a good strength-to-weight ratio without being too heavy, and often has a strong tiger / curly / fiddleback figure.

As for the rim, you want a very stiff structure without excessive weight. Sugar maple AKA "rock maple" would be capable of this and was used for the old 7-ply Fairbanks Vega rims, which were not excessively heavy by virtue of their smaller dimension.  In the case of thicker, deeper bluegrass rims, red maple is a better choice because it is lighter in the strength-weight ratio without sacrificing much stiffness, especially when laminated. A red maple Gibson style rim can weigh under a pound. The pre war Gibson rims were made from red maple.

Having said that, I make laminated rims using a combination of yellow or sweet birch, American beech, and red maple, all of which have similar physical characteristics, but you asked about maple, and I don't know what the 4 types are that you refer to (silver maple is too light and weak for banjos), but  in my book, red maple is the correct answer.

Edited by - Ken LeVan on 05/19/2018 06:44:43

flyingsquirrelinlay - Posted - 05/19/2018:  06:53:25

Thank you Ken. The four types of maple I referred to are sugar, red, swamp and birdseye, the latter being used in furniture making, I think.

rudy - Posted - 05/19/2018:  07:41:21

quote:

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Originally posted by flyingsquirrelinlay

Thank you Ken. The four types of maple I referred to are sugar, red, swamp and birdseye, the latter being used in furniture making, I think.

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No common designation of "Flamed, striped. or tiger" maple?

As far as the maples go my recommendations are based upon workability, resistance to movement after shaping, and the ease of working easily.  You'll find those factors are somewhat inversely related.

Plain maple (in any species) is easier worked and more dimensionally staple, although pedestrian in looks.

The more strikmg the grain figure the more difficulty with stability, and highly figured woods that are most attractive can be very difficult to work, with tear out and chipping if you merely look at them.  High count birdseye is particularly prone to this and "eyes" will sometimes easily pop out of the surface if you don't have good work methods for figured woods.

"Types" are a good thing to have knowledge of, but the other factors end up being far more important.

Zachary Hoyt - Posted - 05/19/2018:  07:42:10

There are many more kinds of maple. Birdseye is a figure, not a species, found on certain individual trees or parts of trees, like curly maple. Swamp maple is a broad term, used in different ways in different places, but most often around here it seems to mean red maple that is growing in a swamp. I have worked with sugar maple and red maple and have not found much difference in their applications for instrument building. Sugar maple is usually a little heavier and harder, but there are individual variations. Out west there is big leaf maple, which I have never used but it is also used in instruments. Norway maple is a yard tree here in the Northeast, and is a bit softer and more coarse-grained in my limited experience with it. Striped maple grows in the woods here but it's way too soft to be good for much and does not reach any substantial size. The bark is pretty for making twig furniture, though. European maple is another term I see used sometimes, and I do not know whether it is another species or a name for one that we have when it is grown over there. I am sure there are many more that I don't know about.
Zach

kmwaters - Posted - 05/19/2018:  07:43:42

Anyone happen to know which maples are in my Gibson ESS (circa 2009)?

sunburst - Posted - 05/19/2018:  07:46:16

Birdseye maple is type of figure, not a species. It is almost always sugar maple that shows birdseye figure.

In instrument work, I use sugar, red, european, silver and bigleaf maples from time to time. What you are calling swamp maple might be silver maple. Around here (Kentucky) it is often called water maple.

For banjos rims I like sugar maple best. For necks, I like red and sugar maples, but the other maple species will work too if the relative lack of stiffness is accounted for and construction is done accordingly.

(For example, if someone wants a quilted maple neck that will have to be bigleaf maple because quilted figure is nearly exclusively found in bigleaf. In order for bigleaf maple to remain stable in a neck, it is a good idea to reinforce it with carbon fiber or something else effective.)

EDIT:

Four posts while I was typing that! Should I read all of them and see if everything I said is rendered redundant or just delete this post and move on...?

Second EDIT:

I'll let it stand. There is some info here that wasn't brought up in previous posts.

Edited by - sunburst on 05/19/2018 07:51:23

Bart Veerman - Posted - 05/19/2018:  07:53:51

Why maple? Probably because is super available in many parts of the world. Maple trees are hardy and can grow just about anywhere and they grow pretty fast.

What maple? A lot more complicated. When buying it at the lumber yard I wonder about knowledgeable, or truthful, answers when you ask "what kind of maple..."

Check out these two, out of many many, links to what-maple:

mapleleavesforever.com/what-is...an-maple/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maple

flyingsquirrelinlay - Posted - 05/19/2018:  07:56:43

I thank all of you. I try to be as precise as I can be in using language, but I frequently fail: I don't want to go off-thread, but my choice of "kind" or "type" is strictly arbitrary, not to mention the regional terms we may be more familiar with. My question was posed simply as an expression of my curiosity about things in general, banjos (in this case) in particular. Again, thank you.

Mooooo - Posted - 05/19/2018:  08:41:43

Canadian Maple tastes good, but Vermont is good too. Because it tastes good on pancakes and waffles.

pickin_fool - Posted - 05/19/2018:  08:49:00

Canada produces 71% of the worlds supply of maple syrup..of which 91% of it comes from la belle province

Ken LeVan - Posted - 05/19/2018:  09:08:33

Here in northern Pennsylvania, we produce a lot of maple syrup, a large quantity of which is sold to producers in Vermont, which they mix in with their own product and label as "Vermont maple syrup".

sunburst - Posted - 05/19/2018:  09:15:14

I used to make a few gallons of maple syrup each spring in Virginia. The western mountains of Virginia have lots of sugar maples (and red maples). There is even a maple festival in Highland County where sugaring has been a tradition for many years.
There are sugar maples on my place here in Kentucky also. I might find time to boil down some sap again one of these years. Eastern US, especially northern areas and Canada are the source of most maple on the US market. Bigleaf maple is a western US and Canada tree.

sunburst - Posted - 05/19/2018:  09:22:59

Btw, there is a test to determine whether you have sugar maple or red maple. It is a chemical (ferrous sulfate) applied to the surface that acts as a color indicator. I tried it on some of my maple and was surprised to find that some of the really hard stuff that I have is red maple and some of the softer is sugar maple. I figure, if I have to resort to a test to tell which I have, does it really matter?

pickin_fool - Posted - 05/19/2018:  09:24:25

if memory serves me ..and when I played with a decent old time fiddle player, we used to play an old fiddle tune called maple sugar

monstertone - Posted - 05/19/2018:  09:25:15

"Curly" maple in antique Pennsylvania/Kentucky long rifle vernacular, is referred to as tiger stripe maple. (It was common practice in the day, to fake the striped character by wrapping the stock with twine soaked in some flammable substance, & lighting it.) In the musical instrument vernacular, the same maple is referred to as "fiddle back" maple.

Edited by - monstertone on 05/19/2018 09:30:25

stelldeergibber - Posted - 05/19/2018:  09:38:24

The only reason to pour syrup on a banjo is if you want to practice your licks......

Texican65 - Posted - 05/19/2018:  09:52:00

Mr. Waters,

I’ve got a 1999/2000 Earl Scruggs Golden Deluxe, the neck is “Tiger Stripe” maple, and I believe the rim is “Rock” maple.

Dow

pickin_fool - Posted - 05/19/2018:  10:24:40

tiger maple looks great on a neck..esp a laminated 3 or 5 piece neck if the maple is book matched I think they call it..one thing worth mentioning is..if you use birdseye...be careful how you orient it..sometimes the birdseyes don't run all the way thru the thickness of the wood and it is possible to cut the eyes off with the scrap parts of the neck...( there is a way to make clear maple look like birdseye tho)

Mooooo - Posted - 05/19/2018:  10:36:38

quote:

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Originally posted by stelldeergibber

The only reason to pour syrup on a banjo is if you want to practice your licks......

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That's a good one. 

Ken LeVan - Posted - 05/19/2018:  11:48:16

quote:

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Originally posted by sunburst

Btw, there is a test to determine whether you have sugar maple or red maple. It is a chemical (ferrous sulfate) applied to the surface that acts as a color indicator. I tried it on some of my maple and was surprised to find that some of the really hard stuff that I have is red maple and some of the softer is sugar maple. I figure, if I have to resort to a test to tell which I have, does it really matter?

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It probably doesn't matter that much unless it's a pure form.  I found out that, at least here, the maple trees hybridize in years where the red maples and sugar maples bloom at the same time and they cross pollinate.  The seeds from the hybrid tree will produce a tree that resembles one or the other parents, but the hybrid tree itself can share traits from both - bark, leaf shape, type of wood, and can be hard to identify.  I think that's why you can find very dense red maple and not so dense sugar maple.  That happens here all the time.  It could n be that a cross between red maple and sugar maple is the best of both worlds.

Aradobanjo - Posted - 05/20/2018:  10:27:37

Hello,

For a time, I was able to get Michigan Maple Syrup from my wife's family. Her and I really enjoyed the flavor.

link-o-sausages - Posted - 05/21/2018:  12:37:07

Sugar/rock maple seems to be the standard in industrial instrument factories. Butternut and hickory syrup is great if you can find some.