I use poplar for all of my working dog stuff...easy to get at the Big Boxes, stains up nice and very little grain to mess up the final picture.
That being said, I have LOTS of it lying around in varying odd sizes and have been considering trying a production run of slimlines with the intent of putting my website on them somehow (engraving or something) and handing them out. A local fella gave me an idea for a jig involving a straight bit and a router mounted over the lathe to produce them quickly...but it would depend on how they look <shrug>
Anywayyyy, used poplar a couple of weeks ago to teach my daughter to turn before we went to to an acrylics class (together we're now a 5-pen wonder! WooHoo! :biggrin
. It's not fancy by any means, but it
feels nice and she's using it daily at college. She likes it, and that was really all that mattered.
I was thinking of trying some of the MinWax Pecan Gloss Polyshades on a poplar pen...I do like the way it comes out on other poplar stuff.
Oh well, my $0.02 worth, I guess.
Lee aka KiltedGunn