Thread: Poplar as a scale wood?

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Sorry but burls are not soft,most are like iron,they need to be stabilized because they can be friable in nature,This piece of madrone took me 7 hrs to turn with carbide bits.

Should have specificaly said *some* burls are soft, as are some woods, but when an already softer hard wood now burl have inclusions, if left untreated the wood becomes increasingly unstable, breakable, etc...

Nice work by the way, thats a huge, awesome piece of wood

In my work experience, poplar is used as a cheap hardwood for paint grade applications. Its actually the highest quality, where a paint grade wood, would be used. Stair stringers, crown molding, door and window casing, solid wood doors or any other place you need a high quality product that will be painted. In my eyes I see it as a cheap, cheap, cheap hardwood. It is actually a soft hardwood in comparison to other hardwoods. That being said, it machines very nicely.

As wood scales for razors, I don't see it being a problem. I thought about using it the other day when I saw some poplar crown molding that had an area of black fading into a green. Looked awesome!!!! If you could fined the right hunk, you could get some attractive scales!!!

Actually, very few burls are dense. Amboyna, Ironwood and Camphor are dense and common but most are soft and airy. That is the nature of burls and I have worked with hundreds of burls.