Hurrah for poplar.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Settled on a nice, large piece of poplar for my bench legs; the price was right, and while I'll need to do one glue up for each leg, I'll get nice large ones out of it. I'd still love a bandsaw, but after working with so much maple lately for the top of the bench and a few other projects, I tell you what - working with poplar makes you feel like superman! Part of it is getting my strength back after doing a lot of work lately - I bike a lot, but that doesn't do a lot for upper body strength - but ripping two plus inch thick stock this easily is just such a nice change after hard maple!

[Mike Holbrook]

Sounds like you are making your top out of maple and your base of poplar? Hard or soft maple for the top? That sounds like a good idea to me. I found 8/4 ash at my local hardwood dealer for a good price but I think a softer wood would work fine for the base and legs. I am making a Split-Top Roubo so I will need some sort of support for the tops. I am just North of Atlanta where poplar is EVERYWHERE! I am about to order bench plans from Benchcrafted unless I find something else today. I hope to get my wood next week before it grows legs.

[Bob Glenn]

I love poplar. I use it for the seats of my windsor chairs and also stained and painted primitive furniture. It takes stain and milk paint nicely and works wonderfully with hand tools. Price is right and it can easily be found in large clear planks.

[Bill Haumann]

I'm close to finishing a nicholson bench in poplar, 8/4 and 12/4. Aprons and benchtop are poplar too. The plan is that projects will ding it, rather than the other way around.

Good luck with your build.

[Chris Griggs]

Poplar is great. Fun and easy to work by hand. As has already been said, its a nice wood to stain or paint too. Should work great for your bench.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I would have gone with something softer, (or at least, cheaper) for the top, but I stumbled across a fellow selling a wooden top he had made for a good price on CL. A lot less than what I would have payed per BF for the maple. I don't know if it's hard or soft, actually . . . One piece has a nice curl the whole length of it though . . .

I figured I was halfway there when I bought this thing. But I ended up changing enough stuff it would have been faster to just start with wood. First I decided it was too wide and not thick enough, so I ripped it down the middle and glued it up for a double thick layer. Then I ended up buying more maple, because it was now a little too thin, so added a few strips to thicken it up. And I decided if I was going to be doing that, I'd add square dog holes at the time, just because . . . The maple I added was hard maple.

Anyway, it's been sitting on my sawhorses for a while now, and I figured I need to finish this at some point. I've gotten a lot of work done on this slab with a vise, but it's way too low, and having not having the base and legs attached make things weird to work.