Is Poplar a Dumb Buy?

[Brian Kent]

I just made a dozen communion sets out of poplar. It is easy to tool, takes shellac and WOP just fine, and is beautiful with the light green areas.

[Paul Cahill]

I use poplar as my main secondary wood. I buy it in bulk, rough cut, 2 x 12 or 16, and just work my way through it. I find it very stable with almost no knots, and I like working it - cutting, milling etc. I use for drawers, braces, shelving, etc. If I care about the appearance, I leave in the sun for a few hours and it turns a lovey brown that I finish with shellac - otherwise it does have a sickly green hue. Writing this reminds me I need to get another load...................

Paul

[glenn bradley]

I used poplar for the base for my new workbench. Dad's poplar lumber rack has seen years of service without incident. Neither of these is designed to remain dent-free but, a 75lb lathe chuck could do a number on a much harder material, eh? I commonly just flood poplar with BLO and wipe off the excess. Once cured (a couple of weeks) I will paste wax the surface so sawdust and curlies don't cling.

As mentioned, poplar is harder than white pine, softer than southern yellow pine but, SYP is also harder than cypress which is often used for outdoor benches and so forth. I wouldn't over think it. If you want to protect some parts of the surface, lay down a silicone pad or scrap of linoleum .

[Larry Fox]

Poplar is an outstanding secondary wood and primary if it is to be finished with an opaque finish. I buy and use a lot of it and "I wish I had another poplar board" is an oft repeated phrase in my shop because it has a lot of utility. For shop stuff like you are describing I will use almost anything but poplar or good plywood are my preferred choices.

[Peter Kelly]

Poplar is fine for painted pieces, just don't use it for anything outdoors. Even with a coating it'll typically decay much faster than softwoods.

[James Gunning]

Steve,

The shelves near my metal lathe that hold the extra chucks and other heavy metal stuff, happen to be plywood with just a coat or two of poly on them. The poplar would work just fine for the same duty. It will get beaten up a bit, but the slightly soft surface is what you want to put precision machined parts on anyway. I would just give the poplar or whatever you use a coat or two of finish to resist the oily bits.

[Steve H Graham]

Now I have a new problem. I glued several pieces side-by-side to make board 16" wide, and then I realized I can't get them through the planer! I guess I'll find out whether my hand plane technique has reached the point where I can get rid of a glue line.

I didn't have anything suitable for use as a caul, so there are a couple of tiny ridges where the boards meet.

[Buck Williams]

Now I have a new problem. I glued several pieces side-by-side to make board 16" wide, and then I realized I can't get them through the planer! I guess I'll find out whether my hand plane technique has reached the point where I can get rid of a glue line.

I didn't have anything suitable for use as a caul, so there are a couple of tiny ridges where the boards meet.

Sounds like a perfect time to get familiar with a cabinet scraper, I wasn't familiar with them until I stared hanging out here, my first use was a real AHAH moment.

[Steve H Graham]

Funny you should mention scrapers. Three weeks ago I finally made a jig for burnishing mine. Some people don't understand the importance of breaking carbide tooling so you always have bits of it handy for projects like this. I'm always careful to break lots of things.

07 12 15 pine jig for carbide scraper burnisher.jpg

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I just made a dozen communion sets out of poplar. It is easy to tool, takes shellac and WOP just fine, and is beautiful with the light green areas.

And it is not super heavy, which can be a problem during distribution sometimes...

[johnny means]

You will regret it when your poplar shelf melts like butter and runs all over the floor. You'll feel even worse when it hardens like peanut brittle and shatters into a thousand slivers.

Yours Truly,
Purist

[Dave Cav]

And now there is fake poplar....At least one mill up here is cutting cottonwood and marketing it as "west coast poplar". It's nasty stuff. I have a bunch of it I got cheap for secondary wood, but it's almost as soft as balsa, or seems like it.

[Rich Enders]

If you are concerned about $20 then you better find a different hobby.

[Jeff Ramsey]

I use poplar all the time if what I'm making get's painted. Poplar is one of the only woods that takes stain really well.

Agreed, except for staining. My experience with staining poplar is that it blotches. So I only use poplar for inner construction, like drawer carcasses, or for a paint application anywhere.

[David Ragan]

If you are concerned about $20 then you better find a different hobby.

So true, that is what I meant to say originally.

I am glad to hear that Poplar is so useful. somehow, I wound up with a lot of it.