In the Fall of 2014, wife and I cut down a couple of mountain maple trees that were encroaching on the back yard. I cut it up into convenient lengths, sealed the ends, and left the timber to dry in the garage.
For the last couple of months I've been having fun turning small bowls and boxes from this wood. Mountain maple has subtle grain, but but nice crotch figure. It's actually a 'trash tree' - it doesn't grow very tall or have a large trunk, and tends to sprout up at the edge of forests. It's also known as 'moose maple' because the bark and leaves are favorites of browsing moose. And yes, he have had a moose in our backyard!
Here's a selection of cups and lidded boxes, all around 2.5" in diameter. The tapered cup in the foreground is face grain; everything else is end grain. The finish is a shop-made wiping varnish consisting of equal parts of tung oil, commercial alkyd varnish and turpentine.
By the way, that' snot a mistake on the front edge of the cup in the lower left - it's actually a bark inclusion that unfortunately blends into the background in the picture.
For the last couple of months I've been having fun turning small bowls and boxes from this wood. Mountain maple has subtle grain, but but nice crotch figure. It's actually a 'trash tree' - it doesn't grow very tall or have a large trunk, and tends to sprout up at the edge of forests. It's also known as 'moose maple' because the bark and leaves are favorites of browsing moose. And yes, he have had a moose in our backyard!
Here's a selection of cups and lidded boxes, all around 2.5" in diameter. The tapered cup in the foreground is face grain; everything else is end grain. The finish is a shop-made wiping varnish consisting of equal parts of tung oil, commercial alkyd varnish and turpentine.
By the way, that' snot a mistake on the front edge of the cup in the lower left - it's actually a bark inclusion that unfortunately blends into the background in the picture.
