Sycamore Hardwood Lumber & Veneers

Windsor Plywood carries American sycamore hardwood lumber in select grades for furniture, cabinetry, and interior millwork. Sycamore is available in standard dimensional thicknesses with widths varying by current stock. Contact your local Windsor Plywood branch to confirm current sycamore availability before planning your project.

American sycamore has a pale cream to light tan colour, a fine texture, and a distinctive ray fleck pattern that is particularly prominent on quartersawn surfaces. It has a Janka hardness of approximately 770, making it a moderately hard domestic hardwood. Sycamore is known for its interlocked grain, which produces attractive figure but can make it challenging to plane without tearout.

Sycamore is used for interior furniture, cabinetry, butcher blocks, and decorative woodworking where its distinctive quartersawn ray figure is the design feature. Quartersawn sycamore displays a prominent, wavy ray fleck similar to quartersawn oak but with a finer, more delicate appearance. It is also used for interior millwork, panelling, and drawer sides in quality furniture construction.

Sycamore's interlocked grain and the ray tissue in quartersawn surfaces can produce some variation in stain absorption. A pre-stain conditioner is recommended before applying pigment stains to promote more even colour. The ray fleck areas tend to reflect differently from the surrounding wood under clear finishes, which is typically considered an attractive characteristic rather than a defect.

American sycamore is abundant across eastern North America and is not a species of conservation concern. It regenerates readily and is harvested from managed forests. As a domestic North American species, it has a lower transportation footprint than imported tropical hardwoods. Windsor Plywood sources sycamore through established domestic lumber suppliers.