The wood of bowling alleys, butcher blocks, basketball courts, and kitchen cabinets. Pale, dense, even-grained, no strong figure unless figured selections are picked (curly, birdseye). Takes wear that would dent oak. Glues and finishes cleanly.
Diffuse-porous hardwood with very fine, evenly distributed pores. Janka hardness ~1450 lbf — among the hardest North American commercial hardwoods. Dense enough to dull tooling that handles oak fine. Common for cutting boards, gym flooring, instrument bodies.
Principled BSDF defaults derived from the sphere woodgrain finish. Reasonable seed for Blender, Substance, Keyshot, Rhino — tune per material. Or grab the whole library at once: ForMaterials library →
# finish: woodgrain albedo #d8b88a metallic 0.00 roughness 0.60 ior 1.45 transmission 0.00 clearcoat 0.00 sheen 0.00 anisotropic 0.60
{
"albedo": "#d8b88a",
"metallic": 0.0,
"roughness": 0.6,
"ior": 1.45,
"transmission": 0.0,
"clearcoat": 0.0,
"sheen": 0.0,
"anisotropic": 0.6
}
# Blender 4.x — Principled BSDF
# Hard Maple (Sugar Maple, Acer saccharum) · finish: woodgrain
import bpy
mat = bpy.data.materials.new(name="mat_maple_hard")
mat.use_nodes = True
bsdf = mat.node_tree.nodes["Principled BSDF"]
bsdf.inputs["Base Color"].default_value = (0.6867, 0.4793, 0.2542, 1.0)
bsdf.inputs["Metallic"].default_value = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Roughness"].default_value = 0.600
bsdf.inputs["IOR"].default_value = 1.450
bsdf.inputs["Transmission Weight"].default_value = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Coat Weight"].default_value = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Sheen Weight"].default_value = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Anisotropic"].default_value = 0.600
# KeyShot 11+ — lux Python API, Generic material
# Hard Maple (Sugar Maple, Acer saccharum) · finish: woodgrain
# Run from Window → Scripting Console
import lux
mat = lux.createMaterial(name="mat_maple_hard", materialType="Generic")
mat.setProperty("diffuse", (216, 184, 138)) # 8-bit sRGB
mat.setProperty("metallic", 0.000)
mat.setProperty("roughness", 0.600)
mat.setProperty("indexOfRefraction", 1.450)
mat.setProperty("transparency", 0.000)
mat.setProperty("coatingWeight", 0.000)
{
"_format": "Substance Designer / Painter \u2014 pbrMetalRough constants",
"_about": "Hard Maple (Sugar Maple, Acer saccharum) \u00b7 finish: woodgrain",
"baseColor": {
"r": 0.6867,
"g": 0.4793,
"b": 0.2542
},
"metallic": 0.0,
"roughness": 0.6,
"ior": 1.45,
"opacity": 1.0,
"anisotropyLevel": 0.6,
"_notes": "Channels listed are the standard Substance pbrMetalRough output. Drop into a Uniform Color node per channel, or as the constant input on a layered stack."
}{
"asset": {
"version": "2.0",
"generator": "ForMatter"
},
"materials": [
{
"name": "mat_maple_hard",
"pbrMetallicRoughness": {
"baseColorFactor": [
0.6867,
0.4793,
0.2542,
1.0
],
"metallicFactor": 0.0,
"roughnessFactor": 0.6
},
"extensions": {
"KHR_materials_ior": {
"ior": 1.45
}
}
}
]
}# USD Preview Surface — UsdShade.MaterialLook prim attributes
# Hard Maple (Sugar Maple, Acer saccharum) · finish: woodgrain
def Material "mat_maple_hard" {
token outputs:surface.connect = </mat_maple_hard/PreviewSurface.outputs:surface>
def Shader "PreviewSurface" {
uniform token info:id = "UsdPreviewSurface"
color3f inputs:diffuseColor = (0.6867, 0.4793, 0.2542)
float inputs:metallic = 0.000
float inputs:roughness = 0.600
float inputs:ior = 1.450
float inputs:opacity = 1.000
float inputs:clearcoat = 0.000
token outputs:surface
}
}
The hardest of the standard furniture hardwoods. Mills cleanly but tools dull faster than on softer woods — keep spares sharp. Excellent for cutting boards, butcher blocks, fine furniture; takes a near-glass-smooth finish off the bit.
Onsrud Cutter hardwood feeds & speeds; USDA Forest Products Lab Sugar Maple machining notes.
→ try this material in swarfUSDA Forest Products Lab Wood Handbook, Sugar Maple entry; The Wood Database.
House vocabulary — terms ForMatter uses with intent.
Materials and processes for people who design and make things.
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Conway's Material World on raw materials, Lefteri's Making It on processes, Forty's Concrete and Culture, Sparke's Design in Context, Bürdek's Design: History, Theory and Practice of Product Design, Schröpfer's Material Design on materials in architecture, Winchester's The Perfectionists on tolerance, Minshall's Your Life Is Manufactured on the global supply chain, von Busch's Making Trouble on material activism, Were's How Materials Matter, Hegger / Drexler / Zeumer's Basics Materials, Untracht and McCreight on metalsmithing, USDA Forest Products Lab on woods, GIA on gemstones, Schott / CoorsTek / Toray / Owens Corning datasheets, MakeItFrom for verifiable property numbers, ASM Handbook, ISO standards. Museum holdings draw from the Met, MAD, V&A, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Newark Museum of Art, British Museum, Heard Museum, Smithsonian NMAI, Eiteljorg Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, and Grand Rapids Art Museum — collection-record permalinks only, designer overview pages and exhibition listings excluded. Voice blocks now ride on every entry kind — material, process, application, and finish — and include Ruskin on iron, Anni Albers on twining, Greg Lynn on the shred-and-teeth NURBS lineage, Pugin on the metal that won't be hammered, Barthes / Yanagi / Benjamin channeled within their philosophy; Sparke, Bürdek, Forty, Conway, Schröpfer, Minshall, von Busch, Lefteri, Pat Pruitt, Mary Lee Hu, Tom Joyce, Albert Paley, and the rest of the contemporary makers quoted verbatim with citation. All cited.
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