Staining Poplar

I like working with poplar; it's cheap, and easy to work. Until now, I've used it only for painted pieces, because I'd heard that it didn't take stain well.

The latest issue of Wood Magazine suggests that you can pretreat poplar with Rit fabric dye before using stain and wipe-on poly. According to the article, this takes care of the blotchiness and produces a "rich look of walnut".

Has anyone tried this?

Tony
 
hi tony ,

i also like poplar . the only staining experience i have with poplar is orange shellac . my daughter wanted the tabletop to show the bookmatched spalting . maybe this will help , maybe not but its all i got on this subject :dunno:
 

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Ever since I started using a prestain wood conditioner I have not had any more problems with the stain absorbing unevenly in the wood.
 
I have stained Poplar and it takes VERY well, the only problem that you can run into is the dark blacks and purples. The greens in the wood do not effect it as bad as people my think as long as you go with a walnut or cherry /dark stain, but will show on a lite stain.
I run 1,000's of feet of stain grade poplar every day for house trim and the builders love it. I have herd of a bleaching process that can whiten the poplar, and herd it works well.
Good luck!
 
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