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Luxe Prestige Chronicle

tiger maple wood

Author

Emily Wong

Updated on May 21, 2026

At the retail level, expect to pay about $5/bf for 4/4 soft tiger maple and $6/bf for 4/4 hard tiger maple. Prices start to soar with thicker, wide and highly figured stock.

What is tiger maple wood?

Flame maple (tiger maple), also known as flamed maple, curly maple, ripple maple, fiddleback or tiger stripe, is a feature of maple in which the growth of the wood fibers is distorted in an undulating chatoyant pattern, producing wavy lines known as “flames”.

Is tiger maple a good wood?

Because of its hardness, durability and beauty, tiger maple is a frequent choice for custom-made furniture, gun stocks, knife handles and musical instruments. Tiger maple wood comes from the red maple tree, a temperate hardwood tree that grows in the eastern United States and Canada.

What is the difference between tiger maple and curly maple?

The term Tiger Maple is most often given to Curly Soft Maple because the curly stripe in it resembles the stripe of a tiger. The term Tiger Maple is also given to a Curly Maple with exceptional or heavier than the normal figure.

What does a tiger maple tree look like?

A tiger maple shows a light and dark striped pattern–like the stripes of a tiger–that run perpendicular to the normal wood grain. No one has determined the exact factors that cause a tiger grain pattern in a maple–or any other species of tree.

What causes tiger maple?

In curly maple, the grain is wavy through the length of the board. The result is that when the wavy grain is planed flat, it appears to look ruffled, or tiger striped, due to the waviness in the grain.”

What is tiger Eye maple?

Abutilon x ‘Tiger Eye’

A fast-growing tropical flowering shrub, named for its distinctive maple-shaped leaves. Exquisite red-veined yellow flowers hang beautifully from its upright form. A showy landscape accent shrub or espalier specimen for frost-free areas.

What is tiger wood oak?

Tiger oak is lumber produced by a particular milling process called quarter sawing. The process results in lumber with a distinctive grain that is often used in high-end applications in which the appearance of the wood is an important consideration.

Where do tiger wood trees grow?

Tigerwood is one of the most radical exotic hardwoods found on the United States market today. It comes from the upland, neotropical forests of South/ Central America, mainly Mexico, Columbia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and the largest exporter; Brazil.

How common is tiger maple?

Tiger maple patterns are not found in all maple trees and actually occur in less than 5 percent of common maple trees. The unpredictability combined with the beauty of the pattern make tiger maple wood a prized wood type by woodworkers.

What is the most expensive wood?

African Blackwood

It is considered as the most expensive wood in the world because not only it is challenging to work with hand or machine tools, its trees are already near-threatened. But as expensive as it may seem, African Blackwood is worth the price.

Where is tiger oak from?

It was likely manufactured in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The fancy horizontal grain on the headboard and footboard is often referred to as tiger oak. It is quarter sawn oak veneer that reveals the medullary growth rings of the wood.

What is cherry wood?

Cherry wood comes from the cherry fruit tree. It is a hardwood, and it is famed for its durability and beautiful color. Cherry wood comes in a variety of colors, including yellow, white, red and dark brown.

Is quilted maple rare?

Quilted maple is incredibly rare and the most expensive of the woods discussed in this post.

What causes Birdseye in maple?

Birds-eye maple is a form of figured hard maple, it is not a variety or species of maple. What actually causes the phenomenon is still unknown. Hypotheses include bird pecking, climate change, genetic mutation, growth history, infection and soil conditions.

What causes quilted maple?

While there’s some debate about what causes wood to become figured, we know what causes spalting- specifically, a fungus. Spalting can happen in almost any wood species, but it’s mostly found in maple. When the ends of a freshly-cut log are exposed to moisture, a fungus can find its way inside the log and begin to eat.