On Tuesday, May 29, 2018 at 9:04:56 AM UTC-4, Rick the antique guy wrote:
On Friday, January 23, 1998 at 3:00:00 AM UTC-5, Nathan Gutman wrote:
Has anyone used poplar boards for anything? Is it stronger
then pine? Harder/easier to cut?
Is it as hard as red oak?
Any comments appreciated.
--
Nathan Gutman
Knowledge may be wonderful but there is bliss in ignorance.
I love poplar and You do have to handpick your colors and Grains for your own taste and preference.
******* sawn Poplar is very attractive in grain charecter, if you can find some. Most of it is Plain sawn or Quarter sawn
The wood is wery stable and reasonably hard as mentioneffd. If it's not stacked and dried properly it tends to curve as other wood types also will.
A wood we have around New england that is overlooked is Hemlock
It is reasonably harder than Pine,Fir,Spruce and Cedars.It's downfall is when it gets wet it warps and twists. So clapboards are out of the question
Southern yellow pine when dry and aged is very hard. Try and get a finish nail into this stuff and it may bend on You.
Woods all have their plusses and minuses.
Unfortunately we do not get to see a lot of great types go to the commercial mills , like Ash, Butternut Sycamore, and Basswood and many others.
Although there are a lot of custom sawyers out there who can provide them or at least saw the logs You can deliver.
rick B.
Nothing you say is wrong, per se, but you are responding to a 20 year old post. We may be
listening, but I doubt the OP still is. ;-)
BTW, a local lumberyard carries finger jointed poplar. Anything up to 6" widths is actually
finger jointed. 8" and up is edge glued using various widths, lengths and grain patterns. It's
much cheaper than clear poplar.
I used it for some cabinet face frames and Shaker style doors that were painted. Flat, straight
and as you know, paints up real nice. You just have to be careful where you rip it. I ripped
one piece too close to a glue joint and then routed the groove for the door panel. That removed
the support under the glue joint and it split when I inserted the panel. Of course, I didn't notice
it until the door was assembled, so I had to devise a clamp system to reglue it. Poplar makes
good spring clamps too. ;-)
https://i.imgur.com/6X3Q1Fw.jpg