anyone here have experience using poplar?
I love to build with the wood, Its beautiful, but for lack of a better word it seems to be very ‘stringy’ wood to carve with and bit life varies.
I use poplar a lot. I can’t say I’ve used too much of it on my xcarve, but this is poplar and was done on it. I think it probably depends on your router bit selection.
Poplar is indeed stringy, but with a nice sharp bit, it’s not too bad.
A compression bit helps out a lot. Cuts down at the top and up at the bottom. Yes very stringy but this bit will give you a better look. Its about the only type of bit I use anymore. Less worries about rip out and break off’s like in MDF. It still happens in MDF but much less. If you pause the cut once in a while you can pull the strings off but many times they will work them self off with this bit. Good Luck.
Are you cutting full depth with that bit or generating a finishing toolpath that works toward the edges for a finishing pass?
By chance have a purchase link for that bit? I’d like to try one.
I think I got them from Inventables. It has been a while. I bought a 10 pack in case I started breaking them. so far no problem I run it around 70 in. a minute., You should be able to find them on Amazon and E-bay too. I got the 1/8 in.