Wood it's characteristics and use in model building

I'm glad you said that Dave. I just went to HD and got a piece of poplar 1" x 12" X 6' and it was $60. The stuff ain't cheap but it's a beautiful piece of wood with no knots and tight grain and s4s to boot. I'm going to squeeze every frame out of it that I can and then see what's left to do. Thanks very much for your post on wood and your advice. Much appreciated, Norgale
 
Dave Stevens (Lumberyard) said:
are you saying Limewood has moe iridescent qualty than boxwood. Limewood and Basswood are way softer than boxwood. boxwood is hard enough you can polish it like marble.
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Limewood and basswood are roughly interchangeable as to smooth flaw free grain soft hardwoods easily worked but with little tensile strength. No relation to boxwood which is very dense and very hard, very smooth, relatively flaw free and holds an edge when worked as well as fine detail.
Poplar is a soft hardwood, grayish in color, a bit denser than boxwood or lime. A useful wood as a substitute for basswood, It works well but does not stain well and is relatively featureless. My local True Value Hardware store carries a nice selection of poplar boards in sizes and prices useful to modelers.
 
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I noticed that so many people in this thread make unintentional mistake by writing “boxwood” when want to write “basswood”. Knowing how different the properties of these two wood types, makes this thread a funny reading.
 
Y.T. said:
I noticed that so many people in this thread make unintentional mistake by writing “boxwood” when want to write “basswood”. Knowing how different the properties of these two wood types, makes this thread a funny reading.
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Mea culpa! :rolleyes:
 
Peter Gutterman said:
Limewood and basswood are roughly interchangeable as to smooth flaw free grain soft hardwoods easily worked but with little tensile strength. No relation to boxwood which is very dense and very hard, very smooth, relatively flaw free and holds an edge when worked as well as fine detail.
Poplar is a soft hardwood, grayish in color, a bit denser than boxwood or lime. A useful wood as a substitute for basswood, It works well but does not stain well and is relatively featureless. My local True Value Hardware store carries a nice selection of poplar boards in sizes and prices useful to modelers.
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Thanks for that Peter. I haven't checked True Value but I will. The frames will not be stained or colored at all. They are pretty much hidden so why bother. I just hope they will be strong enough for the duration.
 
Poplar is very reliable. It was used widely throughout the 18th and 19th centuries as the go to secondary wood for much American furniture built during that period. It is very stable, not prone to severe shrinkage (once properly cured, of course) unlike oak which was used widely as secondary wood in English furniture which was prone to severe shrinkage and warping when imported to this country and exposed to artificial heat and dryness in American homes. Poplar would be very reliable yet light weight when used as frames or even for laid up solid carved hulls for model ships. What I have found in my local hardware store has been pretty reliable . The key to knowing if it's been seasoned is it should be fairly gray-brown and not greenish in color. The sap wood is a paler yellowish tone, but is still stable and of uniform density.
If you buy boards that are new from the store that look a little green, stash them for a while until they begin to go gray. True for any wood you buy, let it season.
 
Don't try to force the drying issue. As they say in the song "Keep it in a cool dry place."
The boards, while milled to pretty modest dimensions, that I got in the True Value hardware store, still had a little greenish hue, but I used them anyway without ill effect. I used some as filler blocks on my Britannia Yacht between the bulkhesads. That was some time ago and I see no cracks or fissures in the hull surface.
I don't want to delay your project, but with newly purchased wood it it is well to give it a month or two to season if you are not sure how well seasoned it is. Usually that stuff has already been kiln dried and is pretty safe. if it doesn't warp or crack after a couple of weeks it's probably fine.
 
if you bought the wood from Home Depot or a woodworking store or a commerical outlet it is kiln dried and as dry as it is going to get. buying from a saw mill as seasoned lumber that is a different story the moisture may be around 16% and that you would want to bring indoord and let it sit around.

the greenish tint in the heartwood is not because the wood is not dry that is just the color of the wood.

The heartwood, or innermost part of the tree, is typically a light cream to yellowish brown, though it may even appear green. It’s not always easy to see where the heartwood meets the sapwood, or outermost part, though the sapwood is usually white to pale yellow. These colors will darken or become yellower with age.

Because of poplar’s unusually light hue, it sometimes soaks up minerals from the ground. When this happens, all sorts of colors may streak through the wood, from blue to green, purple, red, and yellow. This is referred to as “rainbow poplar,” and it’s wood with these characteristics which tend to get used more for their beauty, whereas traditional poplar is used more for utilitarian purposes.


how long you leave it in the sun to change color depends where you are in Ohio where we do not see much long periods of sun it might take a week or two out west in the California sun it might go much faster.
 
I think this wood is all kiln dried, at least the specialty woods are. Some of the fresh PT stuff wouldn't be though. I'll let it set for awhile and see what it does. Thanks again Pete.

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Don't know if you can see this but it's more a brownish color than green but more green in the pic.. Nice, clear board though. For ten bucks a foot it should be gold.
 
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I am not using it yet- my enquiry is because somebody told me they have a quantity here in the UK. I remember it from long ago- light and vaguely boxwood coloured- but not what its like to work with.
 
Thank you Dave Stevens. That was an immense amount of excellent reading and I've probably forgotten most of it already, but it did bring to mind the numerous discussions or more correctly arguments during my working days that the stain was not the issue or at fault because timber varied greatly in colour and/or when viewed from which direction the grain fell. People couldn't understand that apart from colour variations the underlying timber would eventually mature and darken with or without light or direct sunlight. Trying to teach the sales reps this wood phenomena was just as frustrating or as impossible as debating with customers. I lost quite a lot of business because of this. "It's not the stain, it's the timber (colour) prior to, or after staining that effects the over-all stained or tinted final colouring". Again thank you for your post. wish I'd had access to something as detailed as this way back when. - Incidentally, using British english from my school days - yes they had schools back then - my spelling of colour is correct. ;)
 
The Obeche sheets I ordered came today - from an Ebay supplier. I have to say it looks very promising. Harder than linden/basswood and less fuzzy and almost the same colour as Brazilian boxwood. I got 5 pieces of 3mm thick and 5 of 6mm thick 18x4 inches (450x100mm) for around US$ 60 delivered.
 
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