I quite like poplar

Being new to woodworking, planeing (yet another word I am not certain to spell) things square is still a challenge.  I’m just starting to build my confidence on getting edges square (still need to concentrate hard on this).  For twists, cups, and other warped wood, it is beyond me for now.  As such I buy a lot of S4S wood at a decent local lumber yard.  Poplar costs nearly half as much as most of the S4S woods.  Often I buy it.  I gotta say that I really liking the wood.  It’s fun to work with hand tools and some of the boards can be absolutely stunning.

 

For example, look at this beautiful piece of poplar I found.  I wanted to put a simple shelf under my bench.  I found this one board with just stunning colors and perfect for the application (or maybe its like the proverbial baby that only a mother can love).  I kept things simple and just put some bees wax on it.  Every time I see that splash of color under my bench I smile.  I was also happy that I found an easy way to make a shelf that didn’t require any permanent alterations to the bench.  Of course, the one small piece all that way at the right end has a horrible twist it in.  That will get fixed at a future date which I have the skill to fix it.  Or, I will just put in a piece when I have some leftover poplar from another project that doesn’t have any twist.

Update 12July2023:

Not worthy of a new blog so I will just update this one.  Still have these poplar boards under the bench.  They have lost the pretty purple and green colors in them but still have nice dark shades.  I still have that twisted board and it hasn't caused any issues so I haven't bothered to replace it.  Given the length of service of it at this point, it's kind of like the runt of the litter and I am too fond of it to change it.  The boards have nice patina from use.  Nothing excessive in terms of scrapes and scratches.  Nothing has fallen off.  The system has worked well.