# Maple sold in British Columbia is usually bigleaf maple, not hard maple Hewn Shop Notes ยท https://hewn.build/shop-notes/the-bigleaf-maple-202 AI-drafted, not yet checked: Drafted by Chip, the writing system Hewn runs on Claude, from Hewn's craft corpus. Jonathan Salomons has not read this note yet, and no outside reader has checked it. Read it as a shop note: check a number before you cut to it. Cite as: "Maple sold in British Columbia is usually bigleaf maple, not hard maple." Hewn Shop Notes, hewn.build/shop-notes/the-bigleaf-maple-202. Drafted 2026-03-16; AI-drafted, not yet checked. --- Maple sold by lumber suppliers in British Columbia is usually bigleaf maple (*Acer macrophyllum*), not hard maple (sugar maple, *Acer saccharum*). Most finishing and joinery guides are written around hard maple, so a plan that says only "maple" may not fit the wood on a BC rack [1]. Figured bigleaf maple has interlocked grain and needs its own planing and finishing protocol [2][3]. ## Which maple is on the rack Hard maple does not grow natively in British Columbia. It is brought in from eastern Canada [1]. Bigleaf maple is the native maple of the Pacific Northwest and the maple a BC supplier is most likely to stock without a special order [1]. Bigleaf maple and hard maple are different species with different working properties. Confirm the species, by botanical name or by asking "hard maple or bigleaf?", before buying maple in British Columbia [1]. ## Plain and figured bigleaf maple Most bigleaf maple is plain: pale cream to tan, straight-grained, workable and predictable. Plain bigleaf maple suits secondary surfaces and drawer boxes [2]. Bigleaf maple also produces curly, quilted and birdseye figure, sometimes in the same board [2]. Quilted bigleaf maple shows a three-dimensional figure that shifts with the angle of light [2]. ## Why figured bigleaf maple tears out Curly and quilted figure in bigleaf maple comes from interlocked grain, where the fibers reverse direction at tight intervals across the face of the board [2][3]. On interlocked grain, some fibers run against the iron in every planing direction, so tearout does not respond to changing the direction of the pass [3]. ## Planing protocol for figured bigleaf maple Start with a freshly honed edge, not a stropped edge [3]. Set the cap iron 0.3 mm from the cutting edge [3]. Skew the plane 15 to 20 degrees, so that it slices the interlocked grain rather than severing it [3]. Work under raking light only. Overhead ambient light shows a surface as smooth when it is not [3]. Use a card scraper wherever the plane has raised grain at a reversal. On figured bigleaf maple the scraper is part of the protocol, not an option [3]. Do not try to sand out tearout on figured bigleaf maple. The scratches follow the grain reversals and show under the finish [3]. ## Finishing figured bigleaf maple Where the grain reverses in figured bigleaf maple, more end grain is exposed at the surface. End grain absorbs finish faster than long grain, so figured bigleaf maple absorbs finish unevenly, matte in the figure and glossy elsewhere [4]. Before an oil finish on figured bigleaf maple, apply a thin wash coat of dewaxed shellac in a 1-pound cut, by rag, to even out absorption [4]. Plan for one more coat of oil on figured bigleaf maple than on plain maple [4]. Under a waterborne finish, uneven absorption on figured bigleaf maple is present but less pronounced. If the first coat shows uneven sheen, apply the second coat without sanding, inside the recoat window, because sanding interlocked grain at that stage lifts fibers [4]. Bigleaf maple is a light-coloured wood. Oil-based finishes amber it, and a waterborne finish keeps its pale cream colour [4]. Choose between an oil-based and a waterborne finish on bigleaf maple before the first coat [4]. ## Sourcing figured bigleaf maple Figured bigleaf maple comes mainly from coastal British Columbia: the Fraser Valley, Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast. Bigleaf maple from the BC Interior tends to be plain [2]. Kelowna specialty dealers carry figured bigleaf maple [2]. Plain bigleaf maple is priced near cherry. Curly and quilted bigleaf maple is priced near black walnut [5]. Buy figured bigleaf maple in person or from photographs. Variation in figure within a grade is high [2]. ## Sources 1. Hewn staged craft corpus entries R344 and R587 (bigleaf maple species identity), unreviewed. No outside source is named in these entries. (hewn-poc repository, corpus/heartwood_corpus.jsonl) 2. Hewn staged craft corpus entry R969 (bigleaf maple figure types), unreviewed. No outside source is named in this entry. (hewn-poc repository, corpus/heartwood_corpus.jsonl) 3. Hewn staged craft corpus entry R971 (bigleaf maple under the plane), unreviewed. No outside source is named in this entry. (hewn-poc repository, corpus/heartwood_corpus.jsonl) 4. Hewn staged craft corpus entry R970 (finishing figured bigleaf maple), unreviewed. No outside source is named in this entry. (hewn-poc repository, corpus/heartwood_corpus.jsonl) 5. Hewn internal craft log, Reed Run 128, "Species Deep-Dive: Bigleaf Maple Extended Domain," 2026-03-16, unreviewed. No outside source is named for the pricing.