Western balsam poplar - uses?

[Big J]

It would appear that I will be taking about 50 tonnes of western balsam poplar later this month. Big stuff too - up to 1.5m diameter, I am told.

 

Question is, what do I do with it? If anyone wanted any, it would be about £175/cubic metre off saw, cut into 4x4s/sleepers/wide boards etc.

[scotspine1]

If it's growing in Scotland it's more likely to be T.T. 32, a common shelter belt tree up here - hybrid of Western Balsam Poplar (Populus trichocarpa) and Eastern Balsam Poplar (Populus tacamahaca) gives you Populus tacatricho 'Balsam Spire' TT32.

[Big J]

Thank you for the info! It's from up near Dundee.

[se7enthdevil]

should be a good all round light duty timber to be honest. could be used for many things in my opinion.

 

might be a good candidate for large table tops not being too heavy and you shouldn't have too much trouble kilning it.

[slack ma girdle]

Don't leave it hanging around before you process it, or it will start sprouting.

The wood has good two tone colour.

[wills-mill]

At a previous mill I worked at, we had extremely positive feedback from the local pressure treatment firm with (not Balsam) pop. So there's plenty of opportunity for pretending it's the same as every other kind of treatable whitewood.

[Big J]

At a previous mill I worked at, we had extremely positive feedback from the local pressure treatment firm with (not Balsam) pop. So there's plenty of opportunity for pretending it's the same as every other kind of treatable whitewood.

 

I've heard that before, and the previous batch that I had it cut beautifully too. Only issue I had was that it did move rather a lot once it was cut.

 

I've specified some of it cut at 7.5m, and I have a mezzanine to install in one of my barns as a band sharpening area, so a fair bit of it will be used for that. Beyond that, it will probably go into the cheap and cheerful pile of low cost timber for folk that just want boards/beams and don't care what it is so long as it's cheap!

 

Thanks for the feedback folks

[se7enthdevil]

be careful when building with that stuff j, its not the strongest wood in the world mate.

 

Black Cottonwood | The Wood Database - Lumber Identification (Hardwoods)

 

a nice big scotty pine might be better.

[Big J]

be careful when building with that stuff j, its not the strongest wood in the world mate.

 

Black Cottonwood | The Wood Database - Lumber Identification (Hardwoods)

 

a nice big scotty pine might be better.

 

I wouldn't worry. I build everything hugely over spec. The sawmill barn, despite really only having a 24ft main span, is built with 12x9 inch spruce beams.