Cheap, durable wood for simple furniture

tuanj | Posted in Wood and Materials on July 25, 2012 08:55am

In the course of building some cabinet drawers with 1X4 and 1X6 poplar, I’ve gotten attached to the wood but it seems like it might be too soft to use for something like a kitchen table. Anyone use this wood for furniture? Is there an attractive, durable finish treatment for poplar that would still show off the grain but also make it more capable of withstanding the abuse that a kitchen table, or mudroom bench would require? The price is right ($1.70/ft for 1X6) but am I asking too much of the wood for these applications? Thanks for the input.

Replies

photonut | Jul 26, 2012 02:51pm | #1
Why Not?

If you really like it, use it. You can use any wood for whatever you want as long as it is structurally strong enough. Pine is used to build houses and lots of furniture. Poplar is just as durable as pine and better. Poplar is the choice for painted projects. You might avoid using it in high abuse applications if you want the piece to look like new forever. There's really not any wood that's going to remain perfect if kicked with boots, etc. Finish it with some oil and let develop character from abuse.

If you stain poplar, be sure to use a pre-stain treatment as poplar likes to blotch. I avoid water based products with poplar becasue the grain raises quite badly requiring more sanding.

Another wood that looks similar to poplar, and is more durable, is soft maple. It is only a few cents more than poplar in my part of the country.
tuanj | Jul 26, 2012 07:21pm | #2
A fellow at the lumberyard said to use Danish oil to seal poplar before applying the poly, to keep it from yellowing. I used clear satin poly on my cabinet cases , without the oil and they did turn out yellower than I would have liked. Should have listened but I thought plywood, what does it matter? No big deal of course because most of its hidden but I am going to experiment with the oil before any other major projects.

Another factor in my choice is that the 1X4 pople seems a lot straighter on average than pine, with cleaner edges. I am doing without a jointer at present so I pick through the pile a lot. My pickled cedar wainscot looks great so I may also try the pickling route with pople.

Thanks, I guess I'll go with what I like....build a table and live with it a while.
Unclehal | Jul 30, 2012 12:07am | #3
Poplar as a furniture wood.

Poplar is as good a cheap material as there is, it generally has a fine even grain and using the proper finish materials will stand up to lots of abuse. I've used poplar and finished it with lacquer primers and lacquer stains, numerous coats, sanding between coats, with great results. Used poplar for our boys playroom equipment and it lasted well enough to be handed down to our grandkids.

Check with your local hardwood distributer about cheap materials, our local hardwoods outlet gets what they refer to as "plain or no grain" materials at great prices. Last year they had Hickory for 1.40 bf and less if you bought in excess of a hundred bf. I live in Oregon and there are lots of private saw mills that have unusual bargans to be had. But soft or hard it all can be used for furniture, it just requires forethought and different approach.
BruceS | Aug 19, 2012 03:33pm | #4
History

Check out antiques. Country farm furnature used poplar (yellow tulip) and basswood quite often.