Advice wanted on Poplar species

[Big J]

Yep, had lime with coloured heartwood. Quite common once it gets to a certain size. Hard to sell though

[Squaredy]

12 minutes ago, Big J said:

Yep, had lime with coloured heartwood. Quite common once it gets to a certain size. Hard to sell though

Ah yes it was a large tree.  Got a lovely slab from this one 4ft wide and 8ft long with the lovely heartwood dark streak running up the middle.  Was a near perfect table top.  Dried really nicely with no splits.

[CDMR]

Similarly, have come across Lime with a coloured centre. Some seemed to originate from embedded nails but not all. This was in a 4' diameter stem as well with lots of epicormic growth. 

[54gka]

Finally got to mill the Black Pop. Did 12 slabs to put straight in the kiln to see how they dry out before milling anymore.

[Squaredy]

One year on from milling the Poplar I started this thread about, I planed and partly finished a board to show off the grain.  I think it is rather nice.  I have sold some and will certainly buy more logs for milling one day.  

[maven]

How did this work out in the end? I've got 5 newly felled poplars worth of log lengths with similar colouration sitting in my field (photo shows 2/5 of the final quantity), and need to know whether to plank any of them. They are from my neighbours side of the boundary between our two gardens, and one fell into ours during the storm a few months ago. His insurance is paying for it to be cut up into manageable chunks and the brash shredded, and he was told the others were vulnerable too, due to bracket fungus, so he has had the rest cut at the same time. We said they could be left in our front field to dry if we got the timber, which seemed to suit everyone.

 

We've only really dealt with smaller trees ourselves to date, whilst these were 70 foot long, and were too big for us to fell, but we have made chairs from scratch and I'm keen to have a go at making a big table and some counter-tops, so I'm having an Ash with die-back felled and planked, as I know that will make good timber. But this post has made me wonder whether any of these poplars are worth planking, and whether they'd have any value to sell - either as logs or planks.

[maven]

Sorry, that wasn't a brilliant explanation. Our neighbours are elderly and live in a bungalow. We live in an adjacent smallholding with 15 acres of woodland, and a few fields, all managed for biodiversity. The five poplars stood about 20 foot from their house, but thankfully the one that came down fell away from their house, crashing over the boundary into our field. It took down a section of our fence and boundary wall. They put in an insurance claim, but it would only pay for disposing of the one that fell, and not for removing the others that were at risk of falling in future, so they had to pay for that element. And it wouldn't pay to repair the boundary, unless we claimed it on our insurance who then claimed against them (and our home insurance only covers the house and domestic curtilage and not the field).

 

The insurance recommended firm was going to charge £1200+vat per tree, which was beyond their means, so they found a local arb who has been felling them this week. They could only safely fell them into our field, and that meant taking down a section of another fence to give them access, and allowing their contractors to work on our land for four days with a lot of mess and noise. Our neighbours had nowhere to store the timber, nor any use of it, so they'd have had to pay for disposal if we hadn't adopted it. We said it was fine to leave us the timber, and we'd cover the cost of repairing the boundary fence/wall.

 

Unrelated to that, we have four sizable ash trees with die-back. We need to fell at least two of them (one overhangs our driveway, the other is on a boundary with the same neighbour and overhangs his greehouse) which was why I had asked the same guys whether they could fell and plank them. However, I had been told poplar was not good wood for working with, so until I read this thread I had not considered planking any.

[rapalaman]

I’ve just felled 3 60ft ones into customers field, dumped the timber for biomass as didn’t think it was good firewood? Very wet and heavy even in 6” - 10” rings to make it easy moving them. Had three full truck loads and two of chip.

Theyre considering having another 29 down next year so may have a rethink on what to do with the trunks

[Stubby]

20 minutes ago, rapalaman said:

I’ve just felled 3 60ft ones into customers field, dumped the timber for biomass as didn’t think it was good firewood? Very wet and heavy even in 6” - 10” rings to make it easy moving them. Had three full truck loads and two of chip.

Theyre considering having another 29 down next year so may have a rethink on what to do with the trunks

Good fire wood once dry but must be kept dry as it will absorb water like blotting paper .

[Squaredy]

6 hours ago, maven said:

Sorry, that wasn't a brilliant explanation. Our neighbours are elderly and live in a bungalow. We live in an adjacent smallholding with 15 acres of woodland, and a few fields, all managed for biodiversity. The five poplars stood about 20 foot from their house, but thankfully the one that came down fell away from their house, crashing over the boundary into our field. It took down a section of our fence and boundary wall. They put in an insurance claim, but it would only pay for disposing of the one that fell, and not for removing the others that were at risk of falling in future, so they had to pay for that element. And it wouldn't pay to repair the boundary, unless we claimed it on our insurance who then claimed against them (and our home insurance only covers the house and domestic curtilage and not the field).

 

The insurance recommended firm was going to charge £1200+vat per tree, which was beyond their means, so they found a local arb who has been felling them this week. They could only safely fell them into our field, and that meant taking down a section of another fence to give them access, and allowing their contractors to work on our land for four days with a lot of mess and noise. Our neighbours had nowhere to store the timber, nor any use of it, so they'd have had to pay for disposal if we hadn't adopted it. We said it was fine to leave us the timber, and we'd cover the cost of repairing the boundary fence/wall.

 

Unrelated to that, we have four sizable ash trees with die-back. We need to fell at least two of them (one overhangs our driveway, the other is on a boundary with the same neighbour and overhangs his greehouse) which was why I had asked the same guys whether they could fell and plank them. However, I had been told poplar was not good wood for working with, so until I read this thread I had not considered planking any.

Well to answer your question, the poplar I started this thread about and milled in 2018 went up for sale a year later and was all gone within a few months, so it went really well.  Even the sample board I put a photo of on this thread sold eventually despite it only being a sample as it was simply such a nice board.

 

I bought more pop from a local farmer a bit later and that is also all milled and some of it is waiting for me to use in a building I am putting up in my garden.

 

As a timber it dries well, is pretty stable and straight grained, but does have a lot of movement as it changes moisture level.  If you mill some and put it to dry properly it would be good for indoor projects where you do not need great hardness, and where the design allows for a little movement.

 

I personally think the grain is really nice and would love to see it used as kitchen cupboard doors for example.

 

From your point of view I think what you have to think about is how easy it will be to sell the timber - unless you are planning to use it all yourself.  I can manage to sell most timbers as I have footfall and if I can get any timber in front of my customers it will sell.  If you have to rely on advertising you may find it takes a very long time to sell, as people will want the better known timbers.

 

I have just a few weeks ago bought a full lorry load of poplar from an Arbtalk member which I have started milling to standard thicknesses and this will be up for sale next year.  I am a big fan of getting under-used timbers in front of customers as there are so many great timbers out there which get totally overlooked.