Maple

[CastAxe]

Cant find anything on maple, i recently attained some really beautiful maple wood and i had heard that people make pipes from this type of wood. Is this a good option?

[Sasquatch]

It's an option. "Good" is completely relative. Maple is reasonably heat resistant, but not especially stable as regards moisture and repeated soak/dry cycling, and it tends to crack pretty easy in that regard - it's almost like it's so hard that it can't flex enough to not crack.

You can make pipes from maple but they won't last 30 years like a briar can.

If you have a bunch of maple blocks sitting around, you can drill 'em out and practice up your shaping, but I wouldn't be purchasing maple for pipe making.

[Mike Messer]

I made some Maple pipes to practice, getting started, and I smoke one of them regularly. It seems okay to me, but after several months it did develop a crack over 1/2 in. long, along a grain line on the back side of the bowl, about a 1/4" down from the rim. The design of the pipe made the bowl much thinner in that area. It also had a lot of cake build-up inside the chamber, which Peterson Pipe Co. says will crack a bowl. I leave some cake in the bowl all the time, now, and it keeps the crack from leaking.
Another thing about the same maple pipe, I didn't stain it, just a wax finish, and in-line with the grain, end-grain to end-grain, tar from smoking seeped through the bowl and obviously stained the outide wall, almost drawing the shape of the inner chamber.
But, all of that said, I still think it's good for practice pipes and for smoking.

[MadTinker]

I recently made a Pipe from Curly Maple because of those crazy Ghost Grains, this stuff is Super Hard. Just trying it out. Woodcraft had a block in the Bargain Bin...