# Spalted Poplar? And Birdseye Maple?



## Sprung (Feb 9, 2013)

Recently my wife and I were given an old wood dresser that was a little beat up. I was going to paint it, but then we were given another, nicer dresser by someone else. We no longer needed the first, so I tore it apart to salvage whatever wood might be useful to me. I found a few unique pieces amongst it all and I was wondering if I was identifying these properly.

The drawer sides and back were, as far as I can tell, poplar. I've never seen spalted wood in person, and I have little experience with poplar, but these look spalted, so I wanted to confirm if this might be spalted poplar.

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The other picture is of a portion of one of the pieces of 3/16" plywood that formed the drawer bottoms. One of the pieces had a strip that has birdseye in it, and I was wondering if this piece might be maple? It's a pretty thick layer of veneer - 1/16" - so if it is birdseye maple, I was hoping to use it with some regular hard maple in an upcoming project.

[attachment=18069]

Thanks for the help!


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## phinds (Feb 9, 2013)

The spalted wood is tough to call. Tulip poplar is certainly a possibility. The bird's-eye definitely looks like maple.


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## woodtickgreg (Feb 10, 2013)

Joe Rebuild said:


> Looks like some curl too. I would assume maple due to it being more common than other birdseye


I think the curl is planer marks. Definitely Birds eye maple.


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## Sprung (Feb 10, 2013)

Thanks for the help!

I'll be using that birdseye maple in a monitor stand I'm building for my office. I'm quite tall, and have determined that raising the monitor up about 8 inches will help with some of the neck and back pain I've been having. The birdseye will, I think, add a nice touch to it.

I'll admit that I've not had much of a chance to work with a lot of good wood yet. I've built some things with cheap pine, a number of items with aspen (because it could be bought for cheaper than other, but better, woods at the big box stores, and it works pretty easy), plywood/mdf, and a little bit of other woods here and there (cedar and douglas fir when helping dad build boats). So maple and poplar are pretty new to me in regards to working with them. Though I'm about to get some experience with them as the wife has asked me to build a kitchen island. Going to use poplar for the base (since she wants me to paint it) and then make a butcher block top from the maple.


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## woodtickgreg (Feb 10, 2013)

Maple is one of my favs to work with, it's cheap, plentiful and works nice, there are many varieties of maple too, not just the plain white stuff that most people are familiar with. There are hard and soft maples, hard would be best for a butcher block top as it would last a lifetime and then some. I think soft maple is still harder than poplar and aspen.:dunno: A mix of maples in a butcher block top would look nice.


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