Anyone work with Sycamore?

[rabjr]

I know nothing about this wood and welcome any info on it. It is a hardwood and used for flooring I see. But is it hard or how hard is it? How workable is it, does it tend to chip, split etc.

Thanks!

 

[ebiggs1]

As a cabinet maker, I have used about every species of wood there is. Sycamore is a pretty wood because it has “quilting” in it's grain. It is likely to twist and warp if not dried correctly.
It has it's little quirks like most wood does but it can be done. It is about as hard as poplar.

 

[rabjr]

Thanks ebiggs :thumbsup:

 

[rich pierce]

Sycamore is hard to split for firewood, but prone to break branches off the tree. So I don't think it's overly strong. Since it resists splitting it might be good for wooden plates, trenchers, dough troughs, even ball blocks.

 

[rabjr]

So its more suited for making pistol grips instead of a pistol stock then?

 

[Robby]

Swampy, I've never worked with it, but have seen a couple high end, bolt action rifles stocked in highly figured sycamore, so it must be able to stand up to some battering. Probably like most other varieties of wood, in that within any species there are examples of some that are hard, and some, not so much.
Robby

 

[Stophel]

Were those rifles stocked in American Sycamore, or English sycamore (which is a type of maple)?

I have some blocks of sycamore. It is orange and gaudy with lots of rays. I haven't really messed with it, but it doesn't seem very hard.

 

[Stophel]

English sycamore:

American Sycamore:

 

[Robby]

Stophel, I don't know which variety. Both stocks had that wider wavy look like the one labeled "figured" in your pictures. Gaudy is probably the right word for it, with the hard gloss finish it looked like a hologram! It was left natural in color, bright iridescent beige :shocked2:
Robby

 

[rich pierce]

Sycamore isn't related to maple even though the leaves look similar. The maple genus is Acer and the sycamore genus is Platanus. All trees in the maple family have an opposite pattern of branching. If one leaf comes off a stem, there is one exactly opposite it. A small branch coming off a larger branch will have another small branch opposite it also. Only a few families of trees in North America (maple, ash, dogwood, and another I forget) have the opposite pattern of branching.

 

[Mike Brooks]

Sycamore isn't related to maple even though the leaves look similar. The maple genus is Acer and the sycamore genus is Platanus. All trees in the maple family have an opposite pattern of branching. If one leaf comes off a stem, there is one exactly opposite it. A small branch coming off a larger branch will have another small branch opposite it also. Only a few families of trees in North America (maple, ash, dogwood, and another I forget) have the opposite pattern of branching.

Dam, guess I'm never too old to learn something new. :thumbsup:

 

[John Archer]

The other one is Horse Chestnut. The acronym is MADHorse.

John.

 

[rich pierce]

:thumbsup: I learned it as MADCAP with Caprifoliaceae as the CAP and Maple/Ash/Dogwood as the MAD, of course.

I think viburnims and elderberries have been re-classified to another family (not Caprifoliaceae anymore).

Back to sycamore- softish, light in weight, has that regular and attractive grain structure when quarter sawn. Not used as a mainstream gunstock wood in the flint or percussion eras

 

[sutherland]

It has an interlocking grain structure with much figure and is very strong, according to Roy Dunlap I've never worked with it. There's a picture of a sycamore stock in his gunsmithing reference book.

 

[MRW]

Yes it can this is what is on my Brass Underhammer

 

[Et2ss]

Nice Looking UH!