Surprise inside

[Brian Tymchak]

In my spare time I cut blocks for a childrens charity. I get dunnage donated from my favorite woodworking store and process that into blocks of varying shapes and sizes. I cut the (very) rough timbers down to manageable size, then run it through the jointer to get a square corner.

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Until I get those first couple passes on the jointer, I have no idea what the wood actually looks like.
Sometimes I get a nice surprise!

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This is poplar, with an amazing royal blue stripe in a pink and maroon field.

In the past couple of years that I've been cutting blocks I've come across several surprises, almost always in poplar. I started saving some special blocks in my "hall of fame". My favorite is the one with all the colors. Sadly the pink tones are fading a bit with time. There will be new addition pretty soon.

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[Mitch schiffer]

I see a lot of poplar like that at my local menards. I do buy it occasionally even though it is expensive there. I made some French doors out of mineral stained poplar similar to this a few years back. They were pretty neat but supposedly that color eventually fades to a brown color.

[Jim Becker]

The mineral staining in some yellow poplar logs can be stunning...for the right project. I'm not surprised you found that in dunnage, however, as I suspect that a lot of the lumber that exhibits staining when cut gets redirected there as it likely is perceived as a visual defect.

[Dave VanDewerker]

The mill shop get my wood from will trash poplar that has a lot of staining, it does not paint the same as clear poplar. I have gotten poplar that is black as ebony, all shades of brown and green, purple, blue, red, even pink. Most of my scroll work is done on naturally stained poplar.481086481087481088
All of these are natural colors, the butterflies are pinkish

[Jim Becker]

Good selection of material for that horse, Dave!!! I really like the feather piece, too. This is the thing about folks who invest their time in "the art"...the material helps tell them what it wants to be. (Which is also a primary principle that George Nakashima talked about, wrote about and executed on even for furniture)

[Brian Tymchak]

That is some fantastic work Dave! I would not have guessed the feathers being cut from poplar.

[Brian Tymchak]

The mineral staining in some yellow poplar logs can be stunning...for the right project. I'm not surprised you found that in dunnage, however, as I suspect that a lot of the lumber that exhibits staining when cut gets redirected there as it likely is perceived as a visual defect.

Yep, that dunnage is pretty much bottom of the barrel. Most of it is cottonwood, some of which I end up trashing because the grain switches back and forth so much I can't mill it without significant tearout.

Funny though, I also found the most perfectly grained and consistently colored chunk of poplar I've ever seen. That one went on the rack for a future project.