Anybody familiar with Aspen lumber?

[lcm1947]

I ran across this type wood at Lowe's and never having heard of it wondering what it is mainly used for, etc. Anybody ever use it on a project?

[Warren]

I believe the Aspen is of the Poplar family. Aspens in Alaska are almost shrubs or bushes. Very narrow trunks. I've seen Aspens in California that were full sized trees, Have no idea about lumber from Aspens though. If like Poplar it should take paint well, but tricky to stain. I use a lot of Poplar for shop projects and some chests. Easy to work with.

[Pappy]

I've used it for drawer faces on a couple of shop projects. A little softer than Poplar but it is generally clearer and has a consistent light color. Haven't tried to stain any.

[lcm1947]

I was planning on staining it so I'll try finding more info about if that would be good or not. I looked on google last night but couldn't find anything. I know there's sites out there that describe the various woods and thought I had saved some in my favorites but can't find them either. Hopefully somebody will come along with more info but thanks for the replies. Softer then poplar though is not good news as I was planning on doing my coffee table out of it. A little more expensive then pine but a lot cheaper the oak. I wonder if it's softer then pine? I tried denting a piece with my thump nail and really couldn't tell which was softer, the pine, poplar or aspen. So much for that testing method. The only real reason I'm even looking at it is since I don't have a jointer and I can't use Niki's method of jointing that he just showed us due to the boards being too narrow so I was trying to find something big enough for the 24x42 top that's needed. I did find this 24x48 store bought aspen glue up that I could use but then the rest of the table probably should be made out of aspen too. They had some pine pre-glued up boards the same size but man talk about junk! I can't believe something that horrible would even be in a store. They sure won't be selling any of it. Anyway I figured with a aspen top I couldn't use pine for the rest of it. Probably wouldn't look good I'd guess. Anyway that's my dilemma.

[Stan]

Here's some info that may help.

http://www.woodmagazine.com/wood/sto...iles_aspen.xml

http://www2.fpl.fs.fed.us/TechSheets...paspeneng.html

[lcm1947]

Hey thanks Stan for those sites. I really appreciate you going to the trouble of finding them for me. Hmmm. Aspen doesn't sound that bad then except maybe for the special prep that I'll need for applying the finish.

[Stan]

No problem Mac, I have a nice little online database of woodworking related sites. Makes it easy to look things up.

Anyone is welcome to use it, or add to it as the case may be.

http://cpu-etc.com/cgi-bin/wwlinks/BusinessGrid.cgi

[lcm1947]

And thanks for the database. Nice! I'll be getting my use of it I know.