I decided to try to bend some wood a little while back using a piece of thin poplar. I succeeded, but I wasn't really prepared to do much. I was simply curious with regard to how difficult it would prove to be. I managed to create a couple of bent, instrument shapes, largely to experiment with how far I could get and how much the wood could be bent with my starter technique. Now I've gone further, and may be able to finish them.
Given the almost accidental beginnings of these instruments, and their crude shapes, because I wasn't prepared with a mold and wound up taping them to a workbench top as I shaped them, I hesitate to spend much on them. That includes shipping costs for fancy wood. (I'm going to need a finish, and strings, and fret wire, and it all adds up quickly when one is building two at once.)
I can get red oak and tulip poplar boards from which to make fingerboards locally. (I actually have the tulip poplar in a 1/4 inch thickness already as my original, cheap "plan A", as a wood that offered a lightweight neck, a fine grain, and is, technically, a deciduous "hardwood". I've got the oak as well.) I glued a left-over piece of 1/8" maple to a similar remnant piece of African mahogany (also 1/8" thick) tonight. It's drying now. I believe I can sand an edge square and cut a few fingerboards out of this laminated combination, with the maple on top, then dye the maple black to simulate ebony after slotting and installing inlay. (Had to glue the maple grain at 90 deg. to the mahogany grain, which is swirled anyway, because the mahogany was longer across the grain.)
Does anyone with any luthiery experience have a basis for a preference among the three, already stated choices (1. 1/4" poplar, 2. 1/4" red oak, 3. Laminate of 1/8" African Mahogany on Bottom and 1/8" Maple on top)?
I plan to coat the fingerboard with Polycrylic to provide for some longevity, whatever the choice, and I tend to wonder if the stress on extremely hard, exotic woods for fingerboards is a remnant of the days when the fingerboard was merely oiled (as I realize is still the preference among some). At this point, I don't even know how these instruments will sound, so it isn't as if I have a tried and true design just out of a favorite mold that I'm senselessly slighting by going on the cheap with the fingerboard wood.
I'd search old threads, then might post the question in a new thread over at MIMForum. It's the best place on the web (in English) for that type of discussion, loads of helpful people over there.
And FWIW if I've read your post correctly, my first impression, though, is that poplar is way too soft for a fingerboard. I don't think it would even hold frets. Maple is rock hard and used on many instruments. I've never seen an oak fingerboard, it doesn't strike me as the easiest wood to work with for a fingerboard either.
Personally, I would avoid staining one wood to simulate another. It never looks right, and I can't see any point other than deception.
The Polycrylic will, I believe, begin to look unsightly after a relatively short period, and while oak is a wonderfully strong, hard-wearing wood suitable for furniture and buildings, it has a mind of its own on a small scale, and is not a very good tone-wood.
However, I applaud your enterprise. Try anything -- if it works, wonderful, if it doesn't, you've learned something you'd never learn from a book.
Poplar is way too soft for a fingerboard - lacquer might stop a light coloured wood from getting dirty, but it won't stop strings and fingernails from bruising the wood and digging trenches. The only guitars using lacquered fingerboards I can think of are Fenders, and they use rock maple, which is light coloured, but still as hard as rosewood.
Save your poplar for internal blocks and linings (or making yourself a mould ) use something hard for the fingerboard - you don't necessarily need to spend money on exotics - your red oak would do, providing it is 1/4 sawn and well seasoned, or you could look for holly, laburnum, hornbeam or other seriously hard woods that have been felled locally.
I wouldn't bother with your laminated fingerboard - first of all the fingerboard is responsible for a lot of the stiffness of the neck, and the cross- grained layer will contribute nothing to that stiffness. Secondly, wood shrinks across the grain, but very little along the grain. So with your laminated board, the long-grain face will shrink across its width, the cross-grain face won't, and the wood will curl up. If you are going to experiment with laminates, always use an odd number of layers and keep everything symetrical about the centre layer, that way you keep the stresses on both faces the same, and hopefully it will stay flat.
The composite dried well, and I cut it with no mishap into two fingerboards. They look pretty good and seem to be solid and unwarped. With the maple on the top, they should hold the frets and resist wear. I need to square the tops, where they contact the nut, but other than that, the layer of dark, reddish brown beneath the maple actually looks pretty good stacked on top of the neck, and there's no glue line that I can see.
Note that I did use poplar once before for a fingerboard and stained it black (with a coat of Polycrylic). It did hold the frets, although I followed advice from a luthier and glued them in rather than just pressing in the tangs. I got the idea of using poplar from a web site selling Appalachian dulcimers that use either poplar or red oak for fingerboards. (I agree that staining wood can make it look odd, but I've seen so many "all maple" instruments with black fingerboards, that I suspect there's a good deal of staining, even of ebony pulpwood (mostly white) fingerboards, going on out there, unless you believe the factories are sourcing black maple separate from the lighter varieties.) I don't play that instrument much, so I was concerned that the fingerboard might not hold up under daily use.
I've built instruments from oak and poplar, and like the tone of the latter with a spruce top. The former is a little on the "woody" side for my tastes. With the one exception, I've avoided using these woods for fingerboards, because they are not commonly employed. (I've stuck with ebony, rosewood, and maple.) With the sound coming from the box and soundboard, I've always wondered why more common woods aren't used for fingerboards in the modern era, particularly oak, although I've assumed it was due to the risk of splintering while being cut due to the coarse grain, leaving the surface irregular, and the matter of taste/tradition.
I've always wondered if the fiddle, which I've heard can benefit tonally from an ebony fingerboard due to its relatively small size, where every part counts, drove the development of other instruments down the road of ebony fingerboards, or if ebony was simply so easy and cheap to get at one time (colonial era) that it made no sense not to use it, eliminating the disadvantages of staining while using a very hard wood with lots of visual appeal. The dulcimer people seem to have found oak to be a good substitute. They also claim oak makes a good wood for the sound box. (I have a few reservations there.)
Thanks for your insights. I think it's going to be the composite. Because it's time consuming to make, I don't think I'll be doing it again. (If you're willing to spend a few dollars for shipping, fingerboards or suitable solid wood can be found from a variety of sources relatively inexpensively. As I said, I just don't want to spend two or three times the price of the wood on shipping for these untested designs. I've used Allen Guitars and E-bay in the past as sources of fingerboards or wood.)
Ebony has never been plentiful or cheap, it has always been 'exotic' and expensive. The reason that it is is used for fingerboards is quite simply that it is the best material for the job. It's very hard wearing - an ebony fingerboard will last at least twice as long as a rosewood one before it needs shooting. There are native European woods that are about as good as rosewood - box and laburnum are the obvious ones, but they all tend to be difficult to get hold of in large enough diameters to make fingerboards.
"Save your poplar for internal blocks and linings"
Except that this isn't poplar. It's "tulip poplar" or liriodendron tulipifera. True poplar is similar to willow and can be substituted for the latter for blocks and linings. I'm not sure how liriodendron would fare in that respect.
"That's why people call the wood from the tulip tree 'poplar' - the wood has all the same properties."
Not true. Apparently the tree was named "poplar" because the way the leaves fluttered was somewhat like certain populus species - they were thought to be a variety of poplar by some. The timber properties are not the same either. Both the density and bending properties are different.
But the fact remains that tulip poplar is very light, very soft and easily worked, but also very resilient. All properties that it shares with true poplar. and all properties that make it idea for blocks and linings. Just like poplar or willow.
Perhaps you'd like to do some more googling and see if you can find something to back up your claim that it's not suitable for blocks and linings?
Or you could phone a tonewood supplier and ask for some 'poplar linings'. There is a very good chance that what they send you will be tulip poplar. And apart from the colour, I bet you couldn't tell the difference.
"Perhaps you'd like to do some more googling and see if you can find something to back up your claim that it's not suitable for blocks and linings? "
I didn't say that. I said " I'm not sure how liriodendron would fare in that respect."
I say that because I haven't used it for blocks or linings. I haven't used it for blocks and linings because I have had no cause to do so. Willow and poplar species are abundant in the UK and I see no need to use wood imported from America. I am aware of the claim that tulip poplar was associated with the poplar because of the fluttering leaves, not through Google, but through the pages of "The Woodworker" that I read back in the 70s. I used Google to find information to back up my post.
As for the "shared properties", there is nothing shared when it comes to specific gravity, hardness or grain structure. Populus has a lower SG, hardness, and is more porous than liriodendron. It might be to your advantage to Google occasionally, given the amount of spurious claims that you make on here.
"Or you could phone a tonewood supplier and ask for some 'poplar linings'. There is a very good chance that what they send you will be tulip poplar. "
There is an even bigger chance that the supplier won't have either poplar or liriodendron. The latter is not great for bending compared to willow. Spruce or willow are the usual woods available (and if a supplier was selling American poplar as just poplar, I would be having words). Of course, it may be different in America, where the tulip poplar is a native tree. I'm sure that you are aware that many makers in the past used poplar for the backs of instruments (especially 'cellos) and that poplar was used in purfling. This was invariably a species of populus. I would know the difference aside from the colour, as liriodendron cuts more cleanly (I was using a small lump of it to make wedges for rehairing some time back).
Weejie, you are missing the point because you are googling for tree species, not timber types. Timbers get named for their properties - just look at the number of different spoecies that get called 'mahogany' or 'rosewood' or 'partridge wood' . Completely different species, that have different names when they are growing trees, but once they are cut up the timber from them goes by the same name, because it has the same (or very similar) appearance and properties, so to the woodworker it is the same wood. And the same thing happens with poplar and tulip tree.
You seem to be mixing US and UK nomcultures (that's what happens when you google) - I've never heard the tulip tree called a tulip poplar in the UK - that seems to be an American thing.
If you go to a timber merchant and ask for 'poplar' you will almost cetainly get 'yellow polpar' which is the wood of the tulip tree. It's grown commercially in Eastern Europe and Asia and is widely available. THIS is the wood that is used for blocks and linings, and for that back of your Cello that is simply described as 'poplar'. And THIS is the wood that the OP referred to at Tulip Poplar, and I, using common UK English, have been referring to as 'poplar'.
If you want to buy a piece of a poplar tree, you need to specify that you want 'White Poplar'. It is much harder to come by. Poplar is grown commercially, but it is cut very small for the paper industry. Trees big enough for planking only come as chance fells.
Yes, if you google and look up properties of the two wood you'll probably find the numbers for hardness and density are slightly different. But if you get pieces of the timbers in your hand you won't be able to tell the difference - the difference between species is much less than the difference between individual trees within the species.
"Weejie, you are missing the point because you are googling for tree species, not timber types. Timbers get named for their properties - just look at the number of different spoecies that get called 'mahogany' or 'rosewood' or 'partridge wood' . "
Absolute piffle. It's not a case of "googling". It's a case of actual experience of working with timber. The wood is called "poplar" because it comes from a tree called a tulip poplar or yellow poplar. In this case, it is the tree that gives the timber its name 'poplar'). In America, some populus species are known as 'cottonwood' and the timber from those trees are marketed as such - are you saying that 'American poplar' timber is more like poplar timber than cottonwood timber (which is real poplar timber)?.
"If you go to a timber merchant" Oh...it is a timber merchant now is it? I thought it was a tonewood supplier.
" It's grown commercially in Eastern Europe and Asia and is widely available"
Drivel.
"THIS is the wood that is used for blocks and linings, and for that back of your Cello that is simply described as 'poplar'. And THIS is the wood that the OP referred to at Tulip Poplar, and I, using common UK English, have been referring to as 'poplar'."
Even more drivel. Makers as early as the Guarneri family used poplar for the backs of their cellos. The wood came from the Lombardy poplar (populus nigra italica - also known as black poplar). Are you suggesting that these makers were using yellow poplar that had somehow been planted in Eastern Europe in the 17th century (they would have to have been to produce timber of a suitable size for cellos built in the first half of the 18th century). You are full of poppycock, Skreech.
"Yellow poplar" timber is from the tulip poplar tree - it is also sold as tulip wood in the UK - yes, some merchants may call it simply 'poplar' but you'll find it more often than not under the name 'yellow poplar' or 'American tulip wood'. It comes from North America, and most supplies to reach the UK come from the eastern states of the US (the Asian species of liriodendron is relatively scarce and comes from China).
It seems that you might not have even used true poplar - because if you had, you'd know how different it is from liriodendron. The timber from the latter is called 'poplar' due to the tree being associated with poplars. The timber is quite different from populus. There is little populus timber available because it isn't much use for anything these days (populus nigra italica - is getting scarce - but other species are available) and it tends to get used in plywood and pallet manufacture.
I had a plentiful source of populus nigra betulifolia (variety known as 'Manchester poplar') and populus alba, due to storm felled trees in my father's garden. I also had an amount of tulip poplar timber from the innards of a Hammond organ. The timber is quite different both in appearance and working properties ( liriodendron is cleaner cutting as stated earlier) and if you have a problem distinguishing them, I suggest that you rethink your line of business.
If you want to dig a bigger hole for yourself, I'll point you to sources to back up what I'm saying.
OK, you are right about the cello backs. But as for the rest...
Can I just ask what height your father's garden is at, and how much rainfall it gets? Because the white poplar used commercially and in instrument making comes from high up in the alps, where (like spruce grown in the same area) it grows very slowly. It is unsurprising that your fathers tree (a fast growing horticultural cultivar) growing at near sea level, with an ample water supply, has grown fast and soft.
Yes I've used white poplar, lots of it. When I was making lutes I used it exclusively for blocks and the core of veneered necks. These days I make mostly guitars and mandolins, and use yellow poplar, which is easier to get hold of. There is very little difference between the two, but from what you've said your locally grown poplar is different to both, so yellow poplar (or tulip poplar) is probably closer to the timber used for blocks and linings by the old masters than your local white poplar.
"Can I just ask what height your father's garden is at, and how much rainfall it gets? Because the white poplar used commercially and in instrument making comes from high up in the alps"
I thought it was yellow poplar from Eastern Europe and Asia that was used?
You are wrong again. The Cremonese and Brescian makers used Lombardy poplar (populus nigra translates as 'black poplar' not 'white poplar') for backs and ribs and sometimes blocks and linings. They didn't seek out a different species of poplar wood specifically for blocks and linings. Lombardy poplars were grown locally - the trees famously grow by rivers and at low elevation. Another genus of tree is well known for growing in wet places - the willow family, which just happens to be another wood that was used for blocks and linings. Why these two? Well, it's because both willow and poplar have a high moisture content when green (thet grow in damp places remember?) and when they are dried, they produce light and porous timber - desirable qualities for blocks and linings - light weight reduces the weight of the finished instrument and the porosity means it accepts glue more readily. It would be rather silly to seek out slow growing species when the rapid grown varieties are the light and porous ones. Lombardy poplars don't do well at high altitudes - and populus alba, although it does grow at higher altitudes, is not a high mountain species (not really relevant to the subject of blocks and linings of the master makers of Lombardy anyway, as they used populus nigra italica).
So those trees that fell in my father's garden (nigra and alba) would probably have grown at much the same rate as the Lombardies on the river Po - possibly a little slower.
"These days I make mostly guitars and mandolins, and use yellow poplar, "
Why? It's not the best wood for the job. Do you have a source of air-dried quarter cut timber? There are a good few aspen trees in your part of the world. Get hold of some logs and get them quarter cut. You'll have a supply of real poplar in a while.
You can probably obtain willow the same way - or are you going to suggest that the willow used for blocks and linings should be a "slow grown mountain species"?
"There is very little difference between the two"
So you keep saying, but I disagree. So does the American Hardwood Export Council:
"When the U.S. hardwood industry established the AHEC promotional campaign in Europe back in the late 1980's it was important that tulipwood was not confused with poplar, widely grown and used in Europe. Why? Well, the most compelling reason is that it is a far superior timber to poplar in all aspects: colour, character, machining, finishing and strength. "
Well, they would say that. wouldn't they?
Fact is, it isn't better for blocks and linings because it doesn't bend as well and it's less porous. Other than that, yes, for most purposes it does have the advantage.
" so yellow poplar (or tulip poplar) is probably closer to the timber used for blocks and linings by the old masters than your local white poplar."
Ha! The stuff I used (like the Lombardy poplar) was nearer to willow in properties than yellow poplar - and willow was used far more often than poplar for blocks and linings by the old masters. Enough said.
I've got a layer of oak, 1/8", to glue to the bottom of the laminate, to keep it symmetrical, so it should work per your reasoning The top layer is maple (1/8"). I may give the oak a try and see how it works out (or if it splinters while slotting) before I start inserting the fret wire.
I've heard that one of the old dulcimer-makers in the Appalchians made a couple of dulcimers out of poplar. His comment was; "Somehow, the weren't poplar !".
I was totally confused all the way down the line exactly what was instrument the original correspondent was thinking of building ?
Any more clues ?
Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
I decided to try to bend some wood a little while back using a piece of thin poplar. I succeeded, but I wasn't really prepared to do much. I was simply curious with regard to how difficult it would prove to be. I managed to create a couple of bent, instrument shapes, largely to experiment with how far I could get and how much the wood could be bent with my starter technique. Now I've gone further, and may be able to finish them.
Given the almost accidental beginnings of these instruments, and their crude shapes, because I wasn't prepared with a mold and wound up taping them to a workbench top as I shaped them, I hesitate to spend much on them. That includes shipping costs for fancy wood. (I'm going to need a finish, and strings, and fret wire, and it all adds up quickly when one is building two at once.)
I can get red oak and tulip poplar boards from which to make fingerboards locally. (I actually have the tulip poplar in a 1/4 inch thickness already as my original, cheap "plan A", as a wood that offered a lightweight neck, a fine grain, and is, technically, a deciduous "hardwood". I've got the oak as well.) I glued a left-over piece of 1/8" maple to a similar remnant piece of African mahogany (also 1/8" thick) tonight. It's drying now. I believe I can sand an edge square and cut a few fingerboards out of this laminated combination, with the maple on top, then dye the maple black to simulate ebony after slotting and installing inlay. (Had to glue the maple grain at 90 deg. to the mahogany grain, which is swirled anyway, because the mahogany was longer across the grain.)
Does anyone with any luthiery experience have a basis for a preference among the three, already stated choices (1. 1/4" poplar, 2. 1/4" red oak, 3. Laminate of 1/8" African Mahogany on Bottom and 1/8" Maple on top)?
I plan to coat the fingerboard with Polycrylic to provide for some longevity, whatever the choice, and I tend to wonder if the stress on extremely hard, exotic woods for fingerboards is a remnant of the days when the fingerboard was merely oiled (as I realize is still the preference among some). At this point, I don't even know how these instruments will sound, so it isn't as if I have a tried and true design just out of a favorite mold that I'm senselessly slighting by going on the cheap with the fingerboard wood.
Thanks in advance for your helpful perspectives.
# Posted on October 21st 2011 by Arthur Nordstrom
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
I'd search old threads, then might post the question in a new thread over at MIMForum. It's the best place on the web (in English) for that type of discussion, loads of helpful people over there.
http://www.mimf.com/
# Posted on October 21st 2011 by gravelwalks
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
And FWIW if I've read your post correctly, my first impression, though, is that poplar is way too soft for a fingerboard. I don't think it would even hold frets. Maple is rock hard and used on many instruments. I've never seen an oak fingerboard, it doesn't strike me as the easiest wood to work with for a fingerboard either.
# Posted on October 21st 2011 by gravelwalks
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
Definitely not a luthier, but I love working with poplar. Seems you'd want to use all heartwood with a good lacquer finish.
# Posted on October 21st 2011 by Batgirl has left the GPL ;)
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
Personally, I would avoid staining one wood to simulate another. It never looks right, and I can't see any point other than deception.
The Polycrylic will, I believe, begin to look unsightly after a relatively short period, and while oak is a wonderfully strong, hard-wearing wood suitable for furniture and buildings, it has a mind of its own on a small scale, and is not a very good tone-wood.
However, I applaud your enterprise. Try anything -- if it works, wonderful, if it doesn't, you've learned something you'd never learn from a book.
# Posted on October 21st 2011 by gam
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
Poplar is way too soft for a fingerboard - lacquer might stop a light coloured wood from getting dirty, but it won't stop strings and fingernails from bruising the wood and digging trenches. The only guitars using lacquered fingerboards I can think of are Fenders, and they use rock maple, which is light coloured, but still as hard as rosewood.
) use something hard for the fingerboard - you don't necessarily need to spend money on exotics - your red oak would do, providing it is 1/4 sawn and well seasoned, or you could look for holly, laburnum, hornbeam or other seriously hard woods that have been felled locally.
Save your poplar for internal blocks and linings (or making yourself a mould
I wouldn't bother with your laminated fingerboard - first of all the fingerboard is responsible for a lot of the stiffness of the neck, and the cross- grained layer will contribute nothing to that stiffness. Secondly, wood shrinks across the grain, but very little along the grain. So with your laminated board, the long-grain face will shrink across its width, the cross-grain face won't, and the wood will curl up. If you are going to experiment with laminates, always use an odd number of layers and keep everything symetrical about the centre layer, that way you keep the stresses on both faces the same, and hopefully it will stay flat.
# Posted on October 21st 2011 by skreech
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
The composite dried well, and I cut it with no mishap into two fingerboards. They look pretty good and seem to be solid and unwarped. With the maple on the top, they should hold the frets and resist wear. I need to square the tops, where they contact the nut, but other than that, the layer of dark, reddish brown beneath the maple actually looks pretty good stacked on top of the neck, and there's no glue line that I can see.
Note that I did use poplar once before for a fingerboard and stained it black (with a coat of Polycrylic). It did hold the frets, although I followed advice from a luthier and glued them in rather than just pressing in the tangs. I got the idea of using poplar from a web site selling Appalachian dulcimers that use either poplar or red oak for fingerboards. (I agree that staining wood can make it look odd, but I've seen so many "all maple" instruments with black fingerboards, that I suspect there's a good deal of staining, even of ebony pulpwood (mostly white) fingerboards, going on out there, unless you believe the factories are sourcing black maple separate from the lighter varieties.) I don't play that instrument much, so I was concerned that the fingerboard might not hold up under daily use.
I've built instruments from oak and poplar, and like the tone of the latter with a spruce top. The former is a little on the "woody" side for my tastes. With the one exception, I've avoided using these woods for fingerboards, because they are not commonly employed. (I've stuck with ebony, rosewood, and maple.) With the sound coming from the box and soundboard, I've always wondered why more common woods aren't used for fingerboards in the modern era, particularly oak, although I've assumed it was due to the risk of splintering while being cut due to the coarse grain, leaving the surface irregular, and the matter of taste/tradition.
I've always wondered if the fiddle, which I've heard can benefit tonally from an ebony fingerboard due to its relatively small size, where every part counts, drove the development of other instruments down the road of ebony fingerboards, or if ebony was simply so easy and cheap to get at one time (colonial era) that it made no sense not to use it, eliminating the disadvantages of staining while using a very hard wood with lots of visual appeal. The dulcimer people seem to have found oak to be a good substitute. They also claim oak makes a good wood for the sound box. (I have a few reservations there.)
Thanks for your insights. I think it's going to be the composite. Because it's time consuming to make, I don't think I'll be doing it again. (If you're willing to spend a few dollars for shipping, fingerboards or suitable solid wood can be found from a variety of sources relatively inexpensively. As I said, I just don't want to spend two or three times the price of the wood on shipping for these untested designs. I've used Allen Guitars and E-bay in the past as sources of fingerboards or wood.)
# Posted on October 21st 2011 by Arthur Nordstrom
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
Ebony has never been plentiful or cheap, it has always been 'exotic' and expensive. The reason that it is is used for fingerboards is quite simply that it is the best material for the job. It's very hard wearing - an ebony fingerboard will last at least twice as long as a rosewood one before it needs shooting. There are native European woods that are about as good as rosewood - box and laburnum are the obvious ones, but they all tend to be difficult to get hold of in large enough diameters to make fingerboards.
# Posted on October 21st 2011 by skreech
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
"Save your poplar for internal blocks and linings"
Except that this isn't poplar. It's "tulip poplar" or liriodendron tulipifera. True poplar is similar to willow and can be substituted for the latter for blocks and linings. I'm not sure how liriodendron would fare in that respect.
# Posted on October 21st 2011 by Weejie
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
It does just as well. That's why people call the wood from the tulip tree 'poplar' - the wood has all the same properties.
# Posted on October 21st 2011 by skreech
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
(Not to be confused with Brazillian Tulipwood, which is a different thing altogether)
# Posted on October 21st 2011 by skreech
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
"That's why people call the wood from the tulip tree 'poplar' - the wood has all the same properties."
Not true. Apparently the tree was named "poplar" because the way the leaves fluttered was somewhat like certain populus species - they were thought to be a variety of poplar by some. The timber properties are not the same either. Both the density and bending properties are different.
# Posted on October 21st 2011 by Weejie
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
"The way the leaves flutter in the wind, like a poplar, has led this tree to be known as the tulip poplar, although it is no relation"
http://www.kew.org/visit-kew-gardens/garden-attractions-A-Z/north-american-tulip-tree.htm
# Posted on October 21st 2011 by Weejie
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
Ok weejie, you win. You're the champion googler.
But the fact remains that tulip poplar is very light, very soft and easily worked, but also very resilient. All properties that it shares with true poplar. and all properties that make it idea for blocks and linings. Just like poplar or willow.
Perhaps you'd like to do some more googling and see if you can find something to back up your claim that it's not suitable for blocks and linings?
Or you could phone a tonewood supplier and ask for some 'poplar linings'. There is a very good chance that what they send you will be tulip poplar. And apart from the colour, I bet you couldn't tell the difference.
# Posted on October 21st 2011 by skreech
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
"Perhaps you'd like to do some more googling and see if you can find something to back up your claim that it's not suitable for blocks and linings? "
I didn't say that. I said " I'm not sure how liriodendron would fare in that respect."
I say that because I haven't used it for blocks or linings. I haven't used it for blocks and linings because I have had no cause to do so. Willow and poplar species are abundant in the UK and I see no need to use wood imported from America. I am aware of the claim that tulip poplar was associated with the poplar because of the fluttering leaves, not through Google, but through the pages of "The Woodworker" that I read back in the 70s. I used Google to find information to back up my post.
As for the "shared properties", there is nothing shared when it comes to specific gravity, hardness or grain structure. Populus has a lower SG, hardness, and is more porous than liriodendron. It might be to your advantage to Google occasionally, given the amount of spurious claims that you make on here.
"Or you could phone a tonewood supplier and ask for some 'poplar linings'. There is a very good chance that what they send you will be tulip poplar. "
There is an even bigger chance that the supplier won't have either poplar or liriodendron. The latter is not great for bending compared to willow. Spruce or willow are the usual woods available (and if a supplier was selling American poplar as just poplar, I would be having words). Of course, it may be different in America, where the tulip poplar is a native tree. I'm sure that you are aware that many makers in the past used poplar for the backs of instruments (especially 'cellos) and that poplar was used in purfling. This was invariably a species of populus. I would know the difference aside from the colour, as liriodendron cuts more cleanly (I was using a small lump of it to make wedges for rehairing some time back).
# Posted on October 21st 2011 by Weejie
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
I had a huge, mature Tulip Tree in my garden until a few years ago. It was too big. I cut it down. Used it for firewood.
# Posted on October 21st 2011 by ethical blend
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
There are some good photos on this link;
http://hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/poplar.htm
# Posted on October 21st 2011 by Batgirl has left the GPL ;)
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
"I had a huge, mature Tulip Tree in my garden until a few years ago. It was too big. I cut it down. Used it for firewood."
Perhaps you should have converted and seasoned it. Skreech would have been glad of it.
# Posted on October 22nd 2011 by Weejie
More photos . . .
http://www.monumentaltrees.com/en/photos-tuliptree/bel/
# Posted on October 22nd 2011 by Batgirl has left the GPL ;)
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
Weejie, you are missing the point because you are googling for tree species, not timber types. Timbers get named for their properties - just look at the number of different spoecies that get called 'mahogany' or 'rosewood' or 'partridge wood' . Completely different species, that have different names when they are growing trees, but once they are cut up the timber from them goes by the same name, because it has the same (or very similar) appearance and properties, so to the woodworker it is the same wood. And the same thing happens with poplar and tulip tree.
You seem to be mixing US and UK nomcultures (that's what happens when you google) - I've never heard the tulip tree called a tulip poplar in the UK - that seems to be an American thing.
If you go to a timber merchant and ask for 'poplar' you will almost cetainly get 'yellow polpar' which is the wood of the tulip tree. It's grown commercially in Eastern Europe and Asia and is widely available. THIS is the wood that is used for blocks and linings, and for that back of your Cello that is simply described as 'poplar'. And THIS is the wood that the OP referred to at Tulip Poplar, and I, using common UK English, have been referring to as 'poplar'.
If you want to buy a piece of a poplar tree, you need to specify that you want 'White Poplar'. It is much harder to come by. Poplar is grown commercially, but it is cut very small for the paper industry. Trees big enough for planking only come as chance fells.
Yes, if you google and look up properties of the two wood you'll probably find the numbers for hardness and density are slightly different. But if you get pieces of the timbers in your hand you won't be able to tell the difference - the difference between species is much less than the difference between individual trees within the species.
# Posted on October 22nd 2011 by skreech
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
"Weejie, you are missing the point because you are googling for tree species, not timber types. Timbers get named for their properties - just look at the number of different spoecies that get called 'mahogany' or 'rosewood' or 'partridge wood' . "
Absolute piffle. It's not a case of "googling". It's a case of actual experience of working with timber. The wood is called "poplar" because it comes from a tree called a tulip poplar or yellow poplar. In this case, it is the tree that gives the timber its name 'poplar'). In America, some populus species are known as 'cottonwood' and the timber from those trees are marketed as such - are you saying that 'American poplar' timber is more like poplar timber than cottonwood timber (which is real poplar timber)?.
"If you go to a timber merchant" Oh...it is a timber merchant now is it? I thought it was a tonewood supplier.
" It's grown commercially in Eastern Europe and Asia and is widely available"
Drivel.
"THIS is the wood that is used for blocks and linings, and for that back of your Cello that is simply described as 'poplar'. And THIS is the wood that the OP referred to at Tulip Poplar, and I, using common UK English, have been referring to as 'poplar'."
Even more drivel. Makers as early as the Guarneri family used poplar for the backs of their cellos. The wood came from the Lombardy poplar (populus nigra italica - also known as black poplar). Are you suggesting that these makers were using yellow poplar that had somehow been planted in Eastern Europe in the 17th century (they would have to have been to produce timber of a suitable size for cellos built in the first half of the 18th century). You are full of poppycock, Skreech.
"Yellow poplar" timber is from the tulip poplar tree - it is also sold as tulip wood in the UK - yes, some merchants may call it simply 'poplar' but you'll find it more often than not under the name 'yellow poplar' or 'American tulip wood'. It comes from North America, and most supplies to reach the UK come from the eastern states of the US (the Asian species of liriodendron is relatively scarce and comes from China).
It seems that you might not have even used true poplar - because if you had, you'd know how different it is from liriodendron. The timber from the latter is called 'poplar' due to the tree being associated with poplars. The timber is quite different from populus. There is little populus timber available because it isn't much use for anything these days (populus nigra italica - is getting scarce - but other species are available) and it tends to get used in plywood and pallet manufacture.
I had a plentiful source of populus nigra betulifolia (variety known as 'Manchester poplar') and populus alba, due to storm felled trees in my father's garden. I also had an amount of tulip poplar timber from the innards of a Hammond organ. The timber is quite different both in appearance and working properties ( liriodendron is cleaner cutting as stated earlier) and if you have a problem distinguishing them, I suggest that you rethink your line of business.
If you want to dig a bigger hole for yourself, I'll point you to sources to back up what I'm saying.
# Posted on October 22nd 2011 by Weejie
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
OK, you are right about the cello backs. But as for the rest...
Can I just ask what height your father's garden is at, and how much rainfall it gets? Because the white poplar used commercially and in instrument making comes from high up in the alps, where (like spruce grown in the same area) it grows very slowly. It is unsurprising that your fathers tree (a fast growing horticultural cultivar) growing at near sea level, with an ample water supply, has grown fast and soft.
Yes I've used white poplar, lots of it. When I was making lutes I used it exclusively for blocks and the core of veneered necks. These days I make mostly guitars and mandolins, and use yellow poplar, which is easier to get hold of. There is very little difference between the two, but from what you've said your locally grown poplar is different to both, so yellow poplar (or tulip poplar) is probably closer to the timber used for blocks and linings by the old masters than your local white poplar.
# Posted on October 22nd 2011 by skreech
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
"Can I just ask what height your father's garden is at, and how much rainfall it gets? Because the white poplar used commercially and in instrument making comes from high up in the alps"
I thought it was yellow poplar from Eastern Europe and Asia that was used?
You are wrong again. The Cremonese and Brescian makers used Lombardy poplar (populus nigra translates as 'black poplar' not 'white poplar') for backs and ribs and sometimes blocks and linings. They didn't seek out a different species of poplar wood specifically for blocks and linings. Lombardy poplars were grown locally - the trees famously grow by rivers and at low elevation. Another genus of tree is well known for growing in wet places - the willow family, which just happens to be another wood that was used for blocks and linings. Why these two? Well, it's because both willow and poplar have a high moisture content when green (thet grow in damp places remember?) and when they are dried, they produce light and porous timber - desirable qualities for blocks and linings - light weight reduces the weight of the finished instrument and the porosity means it accepts glue more readily. It would be rather silly to seek out slow growing species when the rapid grown varieties are the light and porous ones. Lombardy poplars don't do well at high altitudes - and populus alba, although it does grow at higher altitudes, is not a high mountain species (not really relevant to the subject of blocks and linings of the master makers of Lombardy anyway, as they used populus nigra italica).
So those trees that fell in my father's garden (nigra and alba) would probably have grown at much the same rate as the Lombardies on the river Po - possibly a little slower.
"These days I make mostly guitars and mandolins, and use yellow poplar, "
Why? It's not the best wood for the job. Do you have a source of air-dried quarter cut timber? There are a good few aspen trees in your part of the world. Get hold of some logs and get them quarter cut. You'll have a supply of real poplar in a while.
You can probably obtain willow the same way - or are you going to suggest that the willow used for blocks and linings should be a "slow grown mountain species"?
"There is very little difference between the two"
So you keep saying, but I disagree. So does the American Hardwood Export Council:
"When the U.S. hardwood industry established the AHEC promotional campaign in Europe back in the late 1980's it was important that tulipwood was not confused with poplar, widely grown and used in Europe. Why? Well, the most compelling reason is that it is a far superior timber to poplar in all aspects: colour, character, machining, finishing and strength. "
http://www.americanhardwood.org/news-events/blog/post/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=404&cHash=ad500b460f4bd759633b9ca6ef170de4
Well, they would say that. wouldn't they?
Fact is, it isn't better for blocks and linings because it doesn't bend as well and it's less porous. Other than that, yes, for most purposes it does have the advantage.
" so yellow poplar (or tulip poplar) is probably closer to the timber used for blocks and linings by the old masters than your local white poplar."
Ha! The stuff I used (like the Lombardy poplar) was nearer to willow in properties than yellow poplar - and willow was used far more often than poplar for blocks and linings by the old masters. Enough said.
# Posted on October 22nd 2011 by Weejie
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
Thanks, Skreech.
I've got a layer of oak, 1/8", to glue to the bottom of the laminate, to keep it symmetrical, so it should work per your reasoning The top layer is maple (1/8"). I may give the oak a try and see how it works out (or if it splinters while slotting) before I start inserting the fret wire.
# Posted on October 23rd 2011 by Arthur Nordstrom
Re: Poplar (Tulip) Fingerboard?
I've heard that one of the old dulcimer-makers in the Appalchians made a couple of dulcimers out of poplar. His comment was; "Somehow, the weren't poplar !".
I was totally confused all the way down the line exactly what was instrument the original correspondent was thinking of building ?
Any more clues ?
# Posted on October 26th 2011 by Guernsey Pete