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Birdseye Maple
Also written bird’s-eye maple
Hard maple sprinkled with tiny swirling “eyes.” Elegant, unusual and a little sparkly.
Color over time
Approximate, in a normally lit room. Illustrated grain; real boards vary.
- Hardness
- 1,450 HardHigher number means harder to dent. About the Janka test
- Weight
- Medium-heavy
- Cost of the wood
- $$$$High-end, per board foot
- Grows in
- Great Lakes region
What it looks like
Pale maple covered in tiny swirls, each about the size of a pinhead, that look like little birds’ eyes. Nobody knows for sure what causes them. Some boards have a few eyes, others are packed with them. Before finishing, they look like faint brown dots on cream.
How it changes over time
Warms slowly like hard maple, from white to cream to honey. The eyes darken a little more than the rest, so on older pieces they look like toffee-colored dots.
Shimmer
The eyes twinkle and shift as the light moves. Less dramatic than curly maple, but more sparkly.
Smell
None.
With a natural wax finish
Quiet and pale; the eyes show as soft little dimples. Lovely on small pieces you look at up close.
With a semi-gloss lacquer finish
Each eye becomes a tiny window with real depth. This is where birdseye shows off.
Safe for food?
Looks great with
- American Black Walnut: the eyes stay bright against dark wood
- Cherry: a warm, traditional pairing
- Macassar Ebony: thin black lines around birdseye panels
- Wenge: a dark, modern frame
- Peruvian Walnut: darker than black walnut, for more contrast