poplar... really, poplar!


imcmahon

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I'm so used to poplar being that mostly ugly greenish-white crap that you get at big box stores.  I wanted to buy some inexpensive wood to make shop projects out of, including the hand tool school semester 1 projects, and I decided to cheap out and get #1 common poplar from my local yard at a buck forty a boardfoot.

 

It's very colorful stuff, and roughsawn.  I cut off a gnarly end and planed it down to get a look at it, and I was quite surprised!

 

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An even gnarlier chunk that came off the edge of this piece had some amazing wonders buried within:

 

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Just screwing around in the shop demonstrating sawing and planing to some friends, and it was fun to uncover these hidden gems in what I once considered to be the ugliest grade of the ugliest wood :)

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A relative took me to a small restaurant in Tylertown Mississippi where the interior walls were covered with this type of wood. The owner said that it was locally harvested. I'm like you, the only poplar I've seen around here was the green looking stuff.

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Poplar gets no respect. While true that it can be plain, it can also have great figure, it's easy to work, and the good looking stuff is as cheap as the plain looking stuff - at least I've never seen a special price for "curly poplar." Also, with an oil finish, that green stuff turns a nice shade of brown.

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That bookmatched piece is one of the more interesting I've ever seen...and I've seen a lot of poplar...it's the #1 seller at my yard.

 

Poplar gets no respect from me because 99.9% of it is either totally boring or it's purple and green...two colors I don't want in my wood.  Plus it's SO soft...you can dent it with a fingernail.  I don't think I'll ever see it as anything but a paint-grade wood, but it is useful for that...and I have a bunch of it in my shop for test cuts and what not.  For almost every furniture project I can think of, if I were inclined to use poplar, I'd just spend a little more and use maple instead.

 

But that's a neat piece, no doubt.

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You should see it as it comes off of the mill. The brown sections actually start out a brilliant purple, then fade over time.  I've been trying to find a finishing method that stops the wood from moving from purple to brown, to no avail.  We also just rolled a few 24" poplar logs into our pond, trying to get them to mineralize more quickly.  

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