Carving poplar

[myxpykalix]

I got some kiln dried poplar and i have tried 2 or 3 different types of projects, relief and vcarving and i get way too much fuzzies left on and in the cuts.
I had heard that if you coat it with some sanding sealer first that may help but how deep does it absorb into the wood?

If it only absorbs down say an 1/8th" and you are cutting .25 or more it doesn't seem to help...any advice from you finishers?:confused:

[gene]

use the poplar as firewood and get some maple . poplar is too soft . is there a reason for using poplar?

[khaos]

I got some kiln dried poplar and i have tried 2 or 3 different types of projects, relief and vcarving and i get way too much fuzzies left on and in the cuts.
I had heard that if you coat it with some sanding sealer first that may help but how deep does it absorb into the wood?

If it only absorbs down say an 1/8th" and you are cutting .25 or more it doesn't seem to help...any advice from you finishers?:confused:

You could spray the sealer on just prior to the finishing run.

[kubotaman]

I have carved poplar with sucess. It will just fuzz when carving ninety degrees to the grain. When it did this a little sanding knocks it off.

[knight_toolworks]

poplar is a stringy wood. resawing it is fun as it clogs things up.

[CNYDWW]

Even for paint grade applications in an industrial millwork shop. Poplar is substituted with maple often with rosettes, plinth blocks w/rosettes etc simply because of how soft it is. Getting crisp details against the grain is not an easy task. Tear out and fuzzy grain defeat the purpose.

[myxpykalix]

I was given a fairly good stock of it, and in the past, the poplar i had bought up at lowes carved rather nicely. But this tends to fuzz up. I am using a 90 degree centurion bit at 13000 rpm and 1.7 to 2.6 IPS. You can only go so fast when carving small details anyway.
I don't think it was kiln dried as long as store bought poplar is. I have a friend with a moisture meter, i think i'l have her bring it over next time she brings me wood. This poplar is from a different source then her.

[danhamm]

I do quite a bit of poplar, for 3/d stuff..I use quick drying painters choice..then leave for couple of hours then use steel wool and it smooths out really nice..

[myxpykalix]

Dan,
give me a little more specific detail about "quick drying painters choice"

Is that a brand name? a sanding sealer? a paint?
Do you apply this prior to doing the carvings?
Then do you use the steel wool by hand? If so, how do you get into the small crevices or carvings?:confused:

[danhamm]

Painters touch, made by Rustoleum.. clearcote quick drying..spray cans, I use it for coating name tags it multicoats very nicely.. can be sanded in 15 to 20 minutes between coats..but for fuzzy carvings after carving, spray it completely it hardens very fast..in 20 minutes the fuzzies sand off with steel wool really easy and being steel wool it conforms to the contours very good..

[myxpykalix]

Thanks Dan i'll write that down and go check it out at lowes. I was disappointed by the results i was getting carving this poplar and didn't want to give up on it.

[Bob Eustace]

Fred from Centurion has fantastic cutters at keen prices however his Vee cutters are simply awful and can even fuzz in hardwood. We ended up using them on PCBs with good success. Hitting sanding sealer with a hair dryer on final pass does help as does the old run the file again trick as mentioned on the Vectric forum.

[jhedlund58]

i set my stepover to 8 percent... not 10. and my plunge rate to .3 takes longer to machine worth it to me. then i use a flap disk in my drill to get the rest out. many flap disks are horizontal flaps or across the rotation. i found a verticle disk at box store... sanding pads are in direction of rotation... these things take very little material off and remove remaining nubs nicely.. i do agree that nubs come off better after sealing of some sort. And 0000 steel wool is very nice as well.