How things change/Working with poplar

[Jeff Horton]

I have been working on the design for an entertainment center for the living room. Of course I have several projects lined up to do in the house but this was the priority.

Well the wife said as much as she wants a new TV which requires the new stand. She said she NEEDS a piece of furniture for the laundry room worse. It's actually going to be an interesting piece to make. For me anyway. My notebook with my sketches are in the shop so will post those latter.

My question is about how popular is to work with? This is going to be a painted cabinet and I have read that popular is excellent wood for painted projects. Or is there something better to use for painted projects?

Just curious how it is to work with? This will be a tall frame and panel construction cabinet, mission styling with flat panels. One large door and open shelves on one side for storing laundry baskets.

[tod evans]

jeff, poplar works well with power or hand tools it`s just got an ugly green tinge to it that makes it suitable for paint grade work...i`d suggest mdf for the panels `cause it paints so well and is cheap to boot....tod

[Frank Pellow]

I have worked quite a bit with poplar and quite like it, with the proviso that you paint it rather than stain it. It is not unlike maple to work with -just a slight amount softer. But, when I have tried to stain poplar, the colours have not worked out well. I find that parts of the poplar, at least the poplar that I have used, have a greenish tint which gets exacerbated by the stain.

[Cecil Arnold]

Jeff,

As far as I'm concerned, tod and Frank nailed it. I have found enough poplar without the green to do some stain, but would never suggest that to anyone else.

[Jim Hager]

Yup, works just fine for paint grade work. Tod is right too, use MDF for panels.

[Jeff Horton]

Thanks, I assumed it was easy to work with because it is used so much. Just have never used it enough to really know for sure.

As for staining I had some luck. In our house I needed two doors stained and rest were painted. I had to order the doors to get the style I wanted. To get the two in oak of some other stainable wood it was going to cost triple the popular and they had a minimum order of something like 4 or 5 doors and wouldn't just make the two in oak. I wasn't about to spend that and then paint the extras! So I was basically stuck. The good thing was I had several doors the same size. So I took my chances and ordered them in poplar. Then I picked the best two doors to stain and it worked out OK.

[Jesse Cloud]

Hey Jeff,
Poplar is a great wood if you can get around the green tint, like by painting or a dark stain.

Poplar is very straight grained, very forgiving if you joint or plane against the graint, but works very much like other hardwards.

When I'm making furniture, I will often make a spare piece (say a leg or an apron) from poplar and do all my setups (blade height, etc) on it before I risk the maple or oak.

Also, poplar is available - even here in the desert - in a wide variety of sizes, 8/4 and 12/4 included.

[Mark Rios]

I love using poplar when refurbing cabinets in our rentals. It machines very well and easily. Painting them does seem to be the easiest way to finish it though. I've yet to find any good sized pieces that don't have some green in them.

[Russ Massery]

I did find the poplar takes Minwax's red mahogany real well. Most other colors though not so great like said above. The cabinets in my shop a stained with it.

[Dixon Peer]

Poplar is commonly used for moldings and paint grade work. It works well with power and hand tools. I have stained it successfully too, but certainly it's not anywhere near the top of the heap in stainability. We use it almost exclusively for moldings for our houses.

[George Blevins]

I'm currently redoing my top on my bench with Poplar. I'm at the router stages now (edges and maybe an inlay). Sands well, Cuts well, BUT it creates a very fine dust. Can be irritable at times, especially when breathing it. heh.

And I use a dust collector....


Anyway, sometimes the ends will crack, so pick stock that is larger then what you need. I use poplar for tons of painted projects, but my bench will be stained so we will see... It does have green through it, also brown/black in spots. Far better to work with then pine, i think. :thumb:



-George

[Russ Cass]

I did find the poplar takes Minwax's red mahogany real well...I've done the exact same thing with a couple of small poplar projects.

I always thought it worked like soft maple. It hand planes very well.

[Thomas Smith]

I use it as secondary wood for drawer construction. I just use some shellac on it. It's a weed up here and for drawers is great. I had never considered trying to stain it.

[Vaughn McMillan]

I built a Viking bed and a few other pieces of furniture (glorified boxes) for my brother-in-law last summer, and all of it was poplar. As others have said, it's easily worked and pretty forgiving material. We ended up staining all the pieces with brown Kiwi paste shoe polish, and it covered the green well. The shoe polish was definitely not my preference, since the wax in it would make applying a membrane finish next to impossible, but BIL liked the look, so he made the call.

For painted furniture, I think you'll like it.

[Bob Wiggins]

Poplar works OK for painted toilet seats too. I found the end grain somewhat problematic to sand but my equipment and knowlege could have been part of that also.

[Jim Hager]

I have just finished this project with poplar and MDF and since this thread is back up to the top I thought I would post some poplar MDF results

I have no idea what happened to the pics????????????

[Travis Johnson]

I think everyone has pretty much got this wood pegged just about right from a woodworkers perspective, but if I may I thought I would add a little information about this wood from a landowner/ logger's point of view, at least here in Maine anyway.

Here it has the regional name of Popil instead of Quaken Aspen or Popular as it is called elsewhere. It's also of very little commercial value. The stuff grows like weeds and it is regarded as such. If you cut an area of your woodlot, the wood that grows back will most assuredly be popil saplins. Just the sheer amount of wood that this fast growing produces is the reason why the cost of it is so low.

As for stability, it is stable AFTER it goes through a drying kiln, but it goes through a lot of shinkage when it is air dried or kiln dried. It is also prone to warping and twisting. In once saw a popil log pinch a 52 inch rotary sawmill blade come to a stop because the wood had so mush twist to it. That takes a lot of pressure to stop a sawmill spinning that fast and with that much power.

What Popil really excells at though is in the making of paper. Because the wood is so white colored, it does not take much clorine to bleach out the pulp. This saves the papermills a lot of money. But here is the kicker. Because Maine has so much of this wood, and so many people want to get rid of it, it is the lowest paying wood out there. Its just a volume thing. The market is flooded, therefore they don't pay squat for it.

Now with all that being said, this behooves the woodworker because it makes for a great secondary wood for projects. It's also cheap to purchase and there is nothing wrong with a wood that has decent woodworking qualities and is cheap. If you are also looking for a "green" wood...that is one that is very sustainable for the next several generations, Popil gets another big nod.

[Dave Richards]

I used quite a lot of yellow poplar in my boat project. It is marevlous to work; no knots nice straight grain. It's not supposed to be real high on the rot resistance scale but I haven't had any problems with it on my boat.

Some folks think it should only be used for painted projects but I think it looks alright after some exposure.

http://hamiltonwoodworks.com/drichards/Weekender/jksolo2.jpg

[Dave Richards]

Travis, I have an idea Jeff is thinking of a different poplar than the one you are referring to. I'm thinking he's referring to yellow or tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) which is not white but has a more greenish cast when freshly machined.

The Wood Handbook from the Forest Products Lab has this to say. My emphasis shown in bold.

"Aspen is a generally recognized name that is applied to
bigtooth (Populus grandidentata) and quaking
(P. tremuloides) aspen. Aspen does not include balsam
poplar (P. balsamifera) and the other species of Populus that
are included in the cottonwoods. In lumber statistics of the
U.S. Bureau of the Census, however, the term cottonwood
includes all the preceding species. Also, the lumber of aspen
and cottonwood may be mixed in trade and sold as either
popple or cottonwood. The name popple should not be
confused with yellow-poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera), also
known in the trade as poplar. Aspen lumber is produced
principally in the Northeastern and Lake States, with some
production in the Rocky Mountain States." Pg 1-4

[Jeff Horton]

Funny how this thread popped back up after being dead so long. :) And yes, what we get it tulip popular I believe. Lot of weird stains in it, green and sometimes purple. Black too.

I finished the projects I was referring to and I like working with the popular. Wouldn't have wanted to stain that I had either!

Nice looking weekender Dave. I have plans for a Core Sound 20 on the shelf. About to start a couple of kayaks for me and my niece. We want to built them and make a trip this fall in them.

[Dave Richards]

Thanks Jeff. Of course that was before she got her new suit.

[Travis Johnson]

I believe you are right. You learn something new everyday. Sorry if I steered anyone wrong, it certainly was intended to. I'll shut up now...:doh:

[Dave Richards]

Travis, don't shut up now. We need your input.

I think it's just a problem with regional names for different trees.

[Dixon Peer]

I'm currently redoing my top on my bench with Poplar. I'm at the router stages now (edges and maybe an inlay). Sands well, Cuts well, BUT it creates a very fine dust. Can be irritable at times, especially when breathing it. heh.

And I use a dust collector....


Anyway, sometimes the ends will crack, so pick stock that is larger then what you need. I use poplar for tons of painted projects, but my bench will be stained so we will see... It does have green through it, also brown/black in spots. Far better to work with then pine, i think. :thumb:



-George

The end "cracks" are, in the trade, called end checks. It's typical for many kiln-dried woods and has to be taken into consideration when purchasing. One has to allow for waste.

[Robert Schaubhut]

Aneline dye works wonders on poplar in conjunction with other woods.
Shaz