Poplar OM

[Tom OBrien]

Just closed the box this afternoon on an OM made from Tulip Poplar. It's an unusual wood that is very soft and relatively plain looking, but it has a nice ringing tap in spite of the fact that it is about half as dense as mahogany. It's extremely easy to bend and work. It starts out greenish, but darkens to a brown when exposed to sunlight.

[John Parchem]

Did you cut your own poplar set? How long does it take to change color in the sun?

[Tom OBrien]

Did you cut your own poplar set? How long does it take to change color in the sun?

I didn't cut my own set. I bought these from Aaron Hix.

It takes about 3 days in direct sunlight in mid-summer for the green to turn brown.

[Tom OBrien]

Finished installing inserts in the tenon, fretting the fingerboard and gluing the fingerboard to the neck today.

[ken cierp]

So this is good old American Tulip/yellow Poplar? Not Tulip wood. Is this material 1/4 sawn?

[Tom OBrien]

Yes, it is quarter sawn, but I'm not at all happy with the final product and most of the blame is going to the poplar in this case – normally my building skills, or lack thereof are the culprit.

Poplar is a VERY soft wood – about half the density of Mahogany. The tap tone on the body has been dull throughout the build. I'm putting the final coats of lacquer on it in the next couple of days and I'll post pictures of the finished product.

It looks good, but I'm afraid that the sound is not going to impress.

The take away from all of this has been how much I've learned about "shading stains" from the professional piano finisher. He showed me how to adjust my gun so that it mists on stained lacquer to produce all kinds of interesting color effects. I did my first sunburst this way on the Cuatro I just finished, and it saved me from simply clear coating a number of ugly blotches in the poplar. In this way, I discovered how dark stained lacquer, cleverly applied, hides a multitude of sins.