Poplar plywood

[fixerupper]

What are the characteristics of poplar plywood? I am drawing up plans for a storage cabinet for the shop. Was browsing through the Menards website to get an idea on plywood cost and I found poplar plywood as a choice. This is 3/4" ply. Does it warp like sheathing grade? Is it strong, not strong? Does it chip, I plan to dado it for the shelves. This primed poplar is a dollar a sheet more than sheathing grade so the cost difference is not much, $4 more total for four sheets for the poplar. I assume if it is primed it is sanded and does not have knot holes. What do you experts say?

 

[Janicholson]

It is Fir on the inner core plys. It is a soft light wood that if treated well is durable. It is not a exterior grade plywood.
It is kinda smoky tan in grain and color. Poplar is often called Box Wood (old expression) it can be marred with a fingernail.
If used inside within living space it would be fine. It is not birch veneer durable. Jim

 

[redforlife]

Never dealt with it as plywood. As
regular lumber, I always thought it
was pretty soft. Seemed just as soft
or softer than soft pine. Could
practically dig into it with your
finger nail. Saw blades and router
bits would last forever working with
poplar.
As a joke, I'd show somebody a stick
of it, and say, this wood here is real
popular. Most people that knew thier
woods wouldn't catch on right away.

 

[MarkB_MI]

Are you familiar with Baltic Birch? It is a cabinet-grade plywood that comes in 5x5' sheets. It is very stable and mills nicely. Made in Russia. You won't find it at any of the big box stores, but any specialty plywood store will have it in stock.

 

[fixerupper]

This cabinet will be inside the dry shop. The shelves will be 48" wide X 36" deep. There will be a support under the shelf at 24" going from front to back. The 48" span will be supported at 24" in other words. It could end up storing full 5 gal pails and 2 1/2 gallon jugs. I doubt if the whole cabinet would end up with full pails but I want to build it that way. A panel they call Roseburg fir sheathing is $5.50 per sheet more than the poplar. If the poplar is what you guys say it is I am leaning toward the fir sheathing. I need four and a half sheets for this project. I doubt if these sheets will lay perfectly flat but I can handle a little warp when I build it.

 

[Russ from MN]

Polar is a hardwood, used to be used for flooring in my home area. I think once it's dry it's pretty moisture
stable, and doesn't warp. It's not very rot resistant, but should be fine for your use. It's used primarily for
paper making and OSB.

 

[Traditional Farmer]

Lots of it here in my area,soft wood,light weight once its dried out, not nearly a strong as Oak,hickory,etc.Poor firewood.Used in the furniture industry.

 

[MarkB_MI]

Poplar is a cheap, soft hardwood that is devoid of knots. It's mainly used where the wood will be finished 'bright' (i.e. stained or varnished) but a more expensive wood like oak or maple isn't justified. I assume poplar plywood exists only to match poplar lumber.

Now that I understand what you're doing, I'd say using any sort of hardwood plywood is overkill. Fir plywood will be fine; pick your grade: AC, BC or even CD will work. Even CD is expensive these days. Thickness will depend on how much weight each shelf will handle. I've used wood as thin as 3/8 inch, but 1/2 inch is better and you'll probably want 5/8 or even 3/4. You can get very nice 3/4 inch AC flooring plywood (typically tongue and groove), but it must be phenomenally expensive these days.

If you do decide you want to use hardwood plywood, your best choice is birch. It's readily available (either as regular 4x8 sheets or 5x5 baltic birch), exceptionally strong and stable. When I put shelves in a house, I'll use 3/4 inch birch, glue on birch edging to cover the edge grain and finish with clear polyurethane. Beautiful.

The way to keep fir plywood from warping is to attach it to stiffeners. When I build shop shelving, I attach 2x2 stiffeners to the long edges of each shelf. The 2x2s are actually ripped 2x4s, which makes them a little thicker and gives a nice flat side to attach to the shelf. If I needed to handle a lot of weight over a long span, I might use 2x3 or even 2x4 stiffeners. I attach the stiffeners with drywall screws; if I don't want screws to show I'll use brads and glue. Once the shelves are attached to the wall and front posts, they're very solid.

It's none of my business, but a three foot shelf is awfully deep, unless your arms are a lot longer than mine. Also, you'll waste a lot of plywood making 3 foot shelves, which is why I make mine 24, 16 or 12 inches deep.

 

[Jim Phelps]

I use poplar a lot and not sure what pine you are using but poplar is not softer than pine, has a closer grain than pine, plus if needed, termites will not eat poplar, they don't like the oils, we tore down a 120 old house that used a variety of rough sawn woods and none of the poplar had any termite damage.

 

[fixerupper]

Mark your idea is pretty much along the same line as I am thinking. Three feet is deep, I have long arms LOL. I am trying to use the most out the space I have available. The plan is to rip one foot off of two 8' sheets lengthways giving me the 36" wide sides. The two 8'X12" cut offs can be cut into four 48"x12" planks for shelving in the upper part of the cabinet where the shelves are closer together and won't carry as much weight. I know there will be a little shrinkage from saw blade width. The cabinet will be boxed in on three sides but no doors. I have made quite a few shelves, cabinets and drawers in my life and I will admit I made a few that were not satisfactory in my early day. This is my first 36" deep cabinet and I will only be able to get into it from the front, will need a step stool to get to the back of the top shelves. It is free standing so some day my son can move it to another location. Oh, he is taller and has longer arms than me. LOL I do get a little carried away with dadoing, notching and glueing shelves that will be just used for shop storage but this is the way I do it. If kept dry it will still be usable 100 years from now. Thanks for the advice. I am starting to lean toward poplar again.

 

[redforlife]

Poplar was one of many woods used when I worked at a custom wood door factory. Most customers who chose poplar, I think were just wanting a cheap wood to cut down on expense. Was real common for people wanting something in paint grade. And yes, it machined out very easy, and similar to pine. If you dropped something on it, or accidently banged a board into something, it was for sure to leave a dent.
Never used it as a wood for bug repellant. Could very well have those capabilities, as far as I know.
I'm not sure that 120 year old lumber salvaged from an old house, can be compared (quality wise) to new lumber from a lumber yard. Lumber from the year 1900 was likely cut from older, way past maturity trees/timber. The bulk of the lumber that you see today at the big box outlets is cut from much younger trees that likely hasn't even reached maturity yet.

 

[6cylpower]

The poplar in plywood form is only a 1/32 thick veneer anyway so its kind of a mute point if its hard or soft in my opinion. Be prepared to be disappointed cause most varieties of the box store plywood is bowed and warped on its own. Home Depot sometimes carries a cheap version of Baltic Birch that has lots of plies and is pretty stiff.

 

[Jim Phelps]

All lumber these days is cut from immature trees, I watched them cut pine off a section down at Ft. Jackson S.C. and the base of the tree was barely 8 across, hell we wouldn't even cut that for fire wood.