# Using Aspen for Furniture



## grfrazee (Jul 17, 2012)

Good afternoon all,

I will probably be thinning the woods a bit this fall and will probably take down a few 18-24" diameter big-tooth aspen trees. There is an Amish guy down the road with a sawmill, and I was thinking of having him mill those aspen logs up (along with a couple black cherry logs).

Is aspen any good for building furniture with? The big-tooth variety is technically in the same genus as poplar, and according to Wikipedia, is light, fine-textured, and fairly soft. It gets used for pulpwood, particleboard, and OSB.

Obviously I don't want to pay to have it milled if it's no good, but I hate to let it go to waste. We don't go through much firewood (it's a vacation property with a furnace). Then again, I could get really ambitious and turn it all into charcoal for blacksmithing…


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## Grandpa (Jan 28, 2011)

I is light, soft and not very strong but you know that. I use it for part in wood toys but that would be a lot of toys in an 18" tree. I don't think it would be good for firewood either. It is about like the white pine we could buy when I was a teenager. It should paint well. I buy it at Lowe's or Home Depot.


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## teejk (Jan 19, 2011)

...from the "poplar" arena, I bought a truckload of it for finishing out my house (door framing, trim, face frames etc.)...great to work with (easy on the tools) but I think I'd put it in the same class as clear pine for structure stuff if that helps any.

1" stock allowed to dry then glued up into 2" stock would probably be great (again from the poplar arena…it stained up much better than I thought it would…I made my fireplace mantle from it and got lucky with the grain). But it's still pretty soft wood.


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## 47phord (Apr 10, 2012)

I've never used Aspen specifically, but poplar is good to use as a secondary wood (drawer sides, shelves that will be hidden inside a cabinet, etc.) or anything that won't get handled alot (like teejk's fireplace mantle) you just have to use gel stain if you want to stain it. Otherwise, it does take paint well.


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## grfrazee (Jul 17, 2012)

I've had experience with painting poplar, so I figured that aspen would be similar if it's in the same family.

I imagine it would be good for shop furniture since I won't care about it getting beaten up. Though durability is in question.


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## BentheViking (May 19, 2011)

I recently used some aspen for a cabinet face frame. I was planning on poplar, but I didn't see any pieces at lowes that I liked in the size I needed. The aspen worked pretty well.


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