Veneer Tiles

[Forrest747]

I bought way too much Poplar for some support of hinges and such. Anyhow do not want it to goto waste and have a cherry veneer for the interior, so I thought of trimming out the galley in poplar. So looked for poplar veneer locally and found none and went to google. Found some poplar veneer tiles, on Ebay and will get about 100 sqft of tiles. I am thinking that will be more than enought to lay over the baltic birch and match the solid poplar framing i will be doing.

Anyone heard of this and I am thinking it will make for an interesting pattern in the galley, maybe stager them or put them at 45 degrees. I am thinking the only place really is the back wall and the sides with a small strip up where the lights are. I am still working on the hatch concept. Have to be different.

[Woodbutcher]

Why don't you get a piece of cherry veneer and cover the poplar? Same as kitchen re facers do. If the rest of the interior is already cherry. Besides poplar is not that nice of a finish.

[Forrest747]

this is my shortcoming as a builder not knowing the different types of woods. i know cherry pine oak and maple look nice but not sure of others. its the craftsmanship i think is missing from my build. i am enjoying it.

[Uncle Chan]

Poplar is my absolute favorite hardwood to work with. I wouldn't even consider covering it with a veneer. I have pieces with all kinds of colors (including purple!) and veins in it.

[Forrest747]

We bought a dresser combination changing table when Lisa was pregant the first time. It was made out of poplar and from a store that you finished the furniture yourself. Getting it home was a story within it self, anyhow did what i thought was righ bought some scrap poplar to try different stains on it and bought the one I liked. Well started to stain the dresser and the stain made it orange. OMG wife was mad. I justified it because we lived in Denver at the time and matched the Broncos.

[wannabefree]

Try these guys: http://www.certainlywood.com/
$1 per square foot, random width and length.

Poplar is generally considered a secondary wood. It is used for drawer sides, etc. The past 10 years or so it has been showing up in a lot of less expensive furniture as the primary wood because it is cheap and can be stained to look like cherry. Shop at the Bombay store and the "real" wood is poplar. It tends to be pretty soft, but machines well.
As veneer it is used mostly as a backing; seldom as a face veneer. Consequently it is generally thicker than you would normally encounter, but that is not a disadvantage.
All that said, you would probably spend more on any other suitable lumber to put your veneer on than just using poplar lumber. IMO.

[Wolffarmer]

If you use poplar and want to stain it you can try the product in this review from another forum I am active in.

http://lumberjocks.com/reviews/1430

Charles Neil is a highly respected wood worker. And my esteem of him grew when he admitted he uses his fingers to spread glue instead of some fancy glue spreading system.

This might be the product for you.

Randy

[kennyrayandersen]

I’m not a big fan of poplar either, but… it all depends on how it is done. Cherry is actually pretty light, but usually stained dark, but sometimes left natural (so the color of finished cherry can vary widely). If you are hand selecting the poplar (because it can be streaked with purple, green or black), then you could get the poplar and cherry to look good together by fiddling with all of the stains until you came up with a combination that complimented each other. However, if the rest of you interior is cherry, I’d also give a vote for cherry veneer since it’s widely available and you would be more likely to get uniform results with much less effort, though it will probably run you a little more than the poplar (the price is forgotten long after the blah blah).

I’m a fan of:
Walnut (dark)
White oak (medium)
Hard Maple (light)
I like other woods as well, but for every-day affordable stuff… and I prefer natural finishes to stains, but that’s just me.
I never worry about having leftover wood! It will get used, sometime. If you need more cherry, get more cherry and save the extra poplar for the next project – there will be a next project!