Which poplar species is this?

[farmer rod]

I replaced the slats on my mothers garden bench with poplar sawn by (the late) Charlie Willment. He said at the time that I should do it with larch, but mother had insisted that it should be poplar because that is what my grandfather had  told her (which would have been 40 years since at least) because it drys the fastest of all woods.

 

I can honestly say that she was probably right, it appears dry and sittable when most other things are still damp.

 

 

Edited April 10, 2019 by farmer rod

[Squaredy]

41 minutes ago, farmer rod said:

it appears dry and sittable when most other things are still damp.

Is this because it is untreated and highly absorbent?  In other words the water has soaked in rather than slowly evaporated as it would have had to on a sealed surface?

[farmer rod]

17 minutes ago, Squaredy said:

Is this because it is untreated and highly absorbent?  In other words the water has soaked in rather than slowly evaporated as it would have had to on a sealed surface?

Im not really sure why it works. We all know that Pop is like a sponge, but perhaps it doesn't soak up so much water, or if it dries out so well that the green slime or lichen can't grow ..  .. I just don't know, but my teak garden bench has lichen and I feel sure that treated batten from the builders merchant would be green (and have knots with resin) as you point out on a sealed timber it takes an age for any included moisture to evaporate 

[nepia]

Looks very nice Rod and it's great to see Charlie remembered.

 

Hope you're well.

 

Jon

[nepia]

On 10/04/2019 at 19:52, openspaceman said:

...they surface harden cricket bats, by crushing the outer layer, to give a tough surface and a light rigid core.

Presumably that's what I was doing as a kid when spending hours mindlessly hitting the face of a new a new bat with a mallet...?!

[farmer rod]

28 minutes ago, nepia said:

Looks very nice Rod and it's great to see Charlie remembered.

 

Hope you're well.

 

Jon

Thanks Jon, well remembered and quite a bit missed really. Ed has the mill out now and then and is keeping himself busy. We are all good (better when the last five have lambed) hope you are too.

Rod

[openspaceman]

38 minutes ago, nepia said:

Presumably that's what I was doing as a kid when spending hours mindlessly hitting the face of a new a new bat with a mallet...?!

That was just testing how hard it had been done in the press.

 

Small world of treespanners

[nepia]

31 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

That was just testing how hard it had been done in the press.

 

Small world of treespanners

Not very hard then as if you didn't knock a bat in you ended up with a collection of small craters on your bat face!

 

 

[openspaceman]

1 minute ago, nepia said:

Not very hard then as if you didn't knock a bat in you ended up with a collection of small craters on your bat face!

 

 

It's not my game and when I did play it 60 years ago at school I certainly did not appreciate how the surface was hardened, I thought it was all done in a hydraulic press once the bat had been made.

 

I did sell a few cricket bat willows to a firm in Bedford.

 

The question is: if surface hardening is done on willow so it withstand the thwack of red leather why wouldn't the same process harden poplar boards for a table top?

[nepia]

No idea!  But I do remember being slightly disappointed that I was never offered a free bat as my dad used to sell two trees a year (well, 16' of each of two trees) to Gray Nicolls at Robertsbridge.  We lived near Bexhill at the time.