Maple or Poplar for stiles/rails

willyx2 | Posted in Wood and Materials on February 4, 2009 01:37am

I have been getting conflicting advice. I will be building simple “mission” frame/panel paint grade doors for cabinets in a bonus room with little humidity problems. I was going to use poplar for the frame and mdf for the panel. Problem…a friend advised using maple for the frame..little more in price but more stable and less apt to give problems down the road with warping etc.. also should I stick with mdf for the panel or go to a 1/4″ plywood.
Thanx Willy

Replies

Tom7 | Feb 04, 2009 02:40am | #1
I have made many cabinets with poplar rails/stiles and MDF raised panels for paint grade work. As long as you get good kiln dried poplar, I have never seen any warping. The only tricky part about the MDF raised panels is sanding the routed part of the panel after the first coat of paint to remove the raised grain if yu use latex paint. I only use maple when I am doing stain grade.
mrbird90 | Feb 04, 2009 03:36am | #2
I have used both but poplar has a slightly more porus surface and does not take paint a well as soft or hard maple. Maple when sanded has a very smooth surface with no porosity. Sanded with the same grit, maple will give you a better finish for paint. A local cabinet shop showed me the difference as he had two sets of cabinets going through the shop and one was poplar and the other was soft maple and both were spray painted white and you could see the difference in surface texture, the poplar being duller as a result of the underlying surface. The toss up is the big difference in price, with maple being about twice as expensive as poplar in my area.
WillGeorge | Feb 04, 2009 03:24pm | #3
Maple will dent less. Both are stable woods. My opinion only.
oldusty | Feb 04, 2009 05:34pm | #4
The cost of Soft Maple should be close to the same as Poplar.

      Either wood will work fine for you.

   I have used both and the quality of the paint job has more to do with the look than the specie does.

Poplar gets fuzzy in any machined detail and imo does not keep as crisp an edge as Soft Maple will .MDF is preferred for recessed panels .

            regards       dusty