Aspen for drawer construction.

[mouppe]

Aspen was recently demonstrated to me as a good wood for solid drawer construction. I know poplar is a common favourite, and basswood too, but has anyone got any experience with using aspen?

It has a nice consistent colour, it's easy to work, very cheap- are there any pitfalls to aspen and if not, why is it not more commonly used? One downside is that the boards are usually no more than 5" or 6" wide but this is not a problem for drawer construction. These drawers will be fairly small so they do not need to have the strength of maple, oak etc.

I would appreciate any advice out there.

 

[Jonhilgen]

Richard, I use Aspen for drawers all the time.  Well, actually I order Aspen drawers all the time.  They look great, and are very consistent in color.  The company I order them from uses prefinished ply which is a pretty good color match.  The only drawback I could see is that it is soft

Jon

 

[mouppe]

Thanks Jon, re softness, I suppose it's comparable to pine which is very commonly used.

I have to agree the light colour is really easy on the eye.

 

[Jesse Cloud]

We have a lot of aspen out here.  Main use for it is swamp cooler filters.

Its soft, not very stable, and splintery.

Not sure whether its true, but rumors persist that in the west much of the 'poplar' that HD sells is actually aspen.

I have used prefab aspen panels for utility casework with good luck, and its very cheap.

If you wish to make dovetails with it, I would suggest a very sharp chisel. [wink]

 

[Ken Nagrod]

We have a lot of aspen out here.  Main use for it is swamp cooler filters.

Its soft, not very stable, and splintery.

Not sure whether its true, but rumors persist that in the west much of the 'poplar' that HD sells is actually aspen.

I have used prefab aspen panels for utility casework with good luck, and its very cheap.

If you wish to make dovetails with it, I would suggest a very sharp chisel. [wink]

Jesse,

What I've noticed and on occasion have caught first-hand is employees sticking products anywhere in the general vicinity just to fill the empty space, probably due to a lack of caring.  Then it screws up the inventory/ordering process.  All the Home Depots and Lowes I've been to in NJ and DE have poplar and aspen and they're clearly marked.

 

[Jonhilgen]

Richard,

heres a pic of an Aspen drawer from a job I'm installing.

Jon

 

[mouppe]

Jon,

Looks great. I think it will be perfect for my purposes.

Thanks.