Joe wrote:

>Can anybody help with the approximate weight of hard maple (the type that
>an old butcher block would have been made of) per cubic foot?

My copy of  "A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North 
America" by Donald Culross Peattie lists sugar maple at 44 lbs per cubic 
foot, dry weight.

BTW this is a wonderful book and is full of not only the natural history 
of the tree species but also descriptions of uses for the various woods. 
Part of his description of sugar maple:

"As a street tree, Sugar Maple is surpassed in form adapted to traffic 
only by White Elm; and it is far less demanding of water, less injured by 
disturbance to its roots when pipes and drains are laid. But it suffers 
from city smoke and industrial gases; that is what keeps it a village 
tree, a tree of old colonial towns. On the lawn it develops, from its egg 
shape in youth, a benignant length of the lower limbs which is ideal for 
the play of children. The fine tracery of the tree in winter stands 
revealed in all its mingled strength and elegance. In spring the 
greenish-yellow flowers appear at the same time that the leaves begin to 
open like a baby's hand. The full spread of its foliage in summer gives 
what is perhaps the deepest, coolest shade granted by any of our northern 
trees...Under forest conditions, Sugar Maple may grow to 120 feet, with a 
3- or 4-foot trunk clear of branches half the way - a cylinder of 
knot-free wood almost unrivaled among our hardwoods. It is immensely 
strong and durable, especially the whitish sapwood called by the 
lumberman Hard Maple; a marble floor in a Philadelphia store wore out 
before a Hard Maple flooring laid there at the same time. Few are the 
standard commercial uses for lumber where Hard Maple does not figure, 
either at the top of the list or high on it. Tough and resistant to 
shock, it becomes smoother, not rougher, with much usage - as you will 
notice if you look at an old-fashioned rolling pin."

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TomPrice@a...
Will Work For Tools