Court Maple Cigar

[Bree]

I know you all want to know... What the heck is "Court Maple"?? Well it's maple used for a basketball court floor. A local high school tore up their old floor and I got several pieces of the maple floor complete with red and green stripes. So naturally I cut the flooring into blanks and threw one up on the lathe to see what the heck was under those boys shooting hoops.

After sanding to 600 grit, some tung oil, a friction buff, MM-12000, triple buff, 3 coats of CA/BLO, a double buff and Ren Wax here's what turned up.

Nice little curl and Bird's Eyes.

PS... That's on a Black Titanium kit.

 

[Canedriver]

Gorgeous.

Did you have any problems with nails in your wood? Unsure how basketball floors are laid.

I recycled a piece of a bowling alley lane for a work bench I built for a friend. LOTS of nails, but final product was well worth the beauty hiding beneath.

Nice job on reusing wood.

 

[Gary Max]

That looks perfect Bree----I just happen to of picked up a couple hundred curly maple blanks last week.-----:biggrin:

 

[mrcook4570]

Looks great.

 

[bgibb42]

Nice find! Makes a beautiful pen.

 

[jbostian]

Great looking pen.

Jamie

 

[Mrs Rojo22]

Nice!

Robin

 

[theHullTurn]

Awesome find! Some great blanks are gonna come from that!

 

[hewunch]

Cool, I got 2 4x8 foot sheets of court last year. I have more maple than I will EVER use.

 

[greggas]

BIRDSEYE maple....you sure don't see that put down on basketball courts any more !

 

[Bree]

There are a lot of bird's eyes in some of the boards... not dense but medium. I was surprised to find curl with some of the eyes. This blank is by no means the best of the lot. I haven't milled the best boards yet. This was just a test to see what the heck was inside.

I showed it off at the Woodturning club last night and several people expressed an interest in getting their hands on some of these blanks. Since I got them free, I will be happy to oblige them.

I have to do a demo next month and was going to bring one of these in with the stripes and all and turn junk into gold. But I decided to do something else. That would have been fun.

There have been no nails in this wood. It was tongue and grooved to gether and I guess that worked for them.