Popple? for trim?

[mjeselskis]

I don't know what the official tree species is, but up here we call it popple, but I don't think its poplar. It's a fast growing lightweight hardwood. I'm trying to figure out if it would be a good choice for interior stained trim for floor trim as well as doors and windows?

Can anyone tell me what the real name would be, and how it does for the intended use?

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

Being from the South, I've never heard of it. Do you have a picture of one of the trees? I'd love to see it.

[red oaks lumber]

there are 2 types qauking and big tooth aspen. we call them white popple and yellow popple. the yellow makes beautiful trim and or wall board.it takes paint and stain fairly well.the white dont waste your time or money on it ,that stuff goes for osb or paper.

[thecfarm]

My popple trees are starting to get "worms" on them. So called buds. Yours should look the same. When the wind blows these will move too. Does it grow out in the woods alot?

[mjeselskis]

My popple trees are starting to get "worms" on them. So called buds. Yours should look the same. When the wind blows these will move too. Does it grow out in the woods alot?

Yeah, mine is getting the 'worm' buds right now too, they look like white fuzzy caterpillars. I'd say it's the white popple. I have a fair amount mixed in with everything else. I have a few that are around 12" dbh and probably could get 4 - 10' logs out of each tree. I've heard of one guy that uses it for apple ladders since it's really light when it's dry, but I didnt know how it would be for stained trim.

Red Oaks, just curious, what is it that makes the white popple so bad for interior trim? Unstable while drying?

[red oaks lumber]

 when it comes off the saw it already is bowing or twisting  or both, when drying it cups something awful. just all around bad.
if you look up towards the top of the tree the bark should have a slight yellowish color smooth bark, the white will have a rougher bark with some blackish points on the bark.
where these are growing is there any red oaks or birch growing? if there is its agood chance they are yellow if there are white oaks and w.pine growing chances are its white popple.

[thecfarm]

White Oak from what little I know kinda grows around the coast. He's around me somewheres.

[red oaks lumber]

dude i 'm in the middle of the usa and we have white oaks ;D

[thecfarm]

dude,I meant in MAINE.

[snowshoveler]

We call it Poplar here in Nova Scotia.
2 common kinds.
A tall thin version with smooth bark, gets about a foot in diameter then just falls over dead.
not much good for anything...most folks hate it.
The other version is much heavier and has a rough heavy bark , looks like a red oak.
Gets a lot bigger, I have some to saw thats over 2 feet in diameter
This makes nice boards for trailers and truck boxes. and even trim in side.
Very heavy when green but dries unreal fast if under some cover.
Will not dry if at all close to the ground.
When dry its very light and strong, will stand up very well as dumptruck greedy boards.
I sawed up one 10 foot stick and got 2x18 planks and could just about hurt muyself moving them.
I put them in my workshop (unheated) and 6 weeks later I can carry 2 with ease.
Regards chris

[Clark]

The more gravelly the soil on the site, the better the chance it is bigtooth.  Or just look around and find some leaves that fell last year, the difference is pretty obvious if both are present otherwise a quick search will give you pictures of the leaves.

Clark

[eastberkshirecustoms]

Populus tremuloides, Aspen, Popple, or whatever you want to call it has been used around here for hundreds of years as siding, trim boards, and even flooring. They can grow fairly large. I have several that are 24"-28" dbh.

[Chuck White]

Biggest thing I've heard regarding Poplar was it is a good building material as long as it is used under cover.

If used outside, it won't last long if it doesn't have some kind of finish on it!

Here, popple is Poplar.

[jdtuttle]

I'm trying to figure out if it would be a good choice for interior stained trim for floor trim as well as doors and windows?

Poplar makes great trim. It takes paint well. If your staining it there are often colors in the wood so it's a personal preference on looks. You can use it for flooring but it is a little soft & marks up easy.
jim

[SwampDonkey]

He's in Maine, so there is no tuliptree (yellow poplar), but there are three native aspens: large tooth, trembling, and balsam poplar (or balm-of-gilead). We call this group popple or poplar as is a translation of the genus populus. We don't have eastern cottonwood or black cottonwood (similar species to balsam, grows in the west) up this way. The aspens grow pretty big in New Brunswick, up to 3 foot DBH. The last of my big ones were too old to be any good and have fell down in recent years, many were 28-36" dbh. Largetooth grows the fastest in my area, often 8"-9" by 14 years on well drained soil. I was thinning on the farm here back in 2007 and we hit a clump in the middle and it was way too big to thin compared to the trees around it. You could have cut pulp again and it was cut 14 years earlier.

[mjeselskis]

when it comes off the saw it already is bowing or twisting  or both, when drying it cups something awful. just all around bad.
if you look up towards the top of the tree the bark should have a slight yellowish color smooth bark, the white will have a rougher bark with some blackish points on the bark.
where these are growing is there any red oaks or birch growing? if there is its agood chance they are yellow if there are white oaks and w.pine growing chances are its white popple.

It's growing in with some beech and red oak. It's mostly black/dark gray back on the bottom and pretty light white at the time. It's not yellow, so it must be the while popple. If i get ambitious this weekend, i'll take a picture

[ahlkey]

I have used white aspen or quaking for many odd things like shelves, boxes, trim, crafts, and even shed siding for sometime.  Two years ago I cut 5,000 board feet with the sawmill in the 20 inch range that I just couldn't let go for bolts or pulp.  Having wider boards was a plus on a few of my projects. I found it cuts straight and I didn't find it more problematic to dry than other lighter species like basswood.  It also takes stain and paints ok.   Besides when it is something you have a lot of and you can use it sure makes you feel so much better. 

[red oaks lumber]

ahlkey
what you sawed was yellow popple there is no way white acted like you describe.
there is a big aspen mill about 12 miles away, all they do is saw and k.dry apen yellow only . if you try to slip in white you get a docking on scale and price.
i would think if white was stable and tame they would be sawing it. just my thoughts and experiance

[mjeselskis]

ahlkey
what you sawed was yellow popple there is no way white acted like you describe.
there is a big aspen mill about 12 miles away, all they do is saw and k.dry apen yellow only . if you try to slip in white you get a docking on scale and price.
i would think if white was stable and tame they would be sawing it. just my thoughts and experiance

I never realized how difficult it was to get a good picture of a tree, but here are a few.















They are just begging to be sawn, if they really aren't good for trim, maybe i can use them for my daughter's clubhouse that is in the plans for this summer. I can get some nice 1x10 and 1x12s out of the biggest ones.

[snowshoveler]

Those look just like our white poplar. Tall and thin and by the looks of it just about ready to fall on anything in harms way.
Ours will get about that size pretty quick but then die off in a year or 2.
Cut it dry it and use it while you can.
Chris

[laffs]

its poplar. It grows all over the state and most of newengland , but pretty abundunt here. you can use it for trim, plank flooring, boarding boards, board n batten. Dont use it for studs or timbers, timbers will get checks you can throw a cat through, dont use it in damp areas. Its polar
You get clear white boards from the butts , generaly the first 20ft. Most loggers cut it for pulp, not many cut saw logs. If you put the used motor oil to it, it could be used for light trrailer decking, its crap for fire wood to much creo. A guy i know tied a piece through a dowler,said it peeled like a banana, so dont use it for dowels. ITS POPLAR

[beenthere]

Looks like aspen to me. And mjeselskis, I think you may be pleasantly surprised at the lumber you can get from those trees. Sometimes there are wet spots that cause some weird shrinkage but give some a try and find out for yourself. Saw it and sticker it in a good air drying pile (covered or under cover) with some weight on it.
Aspen has pretty good strength values and can make good studs for in a wall. Univ. of MN has some publications on using aspen for stud material. The low prices nowadays negates much of a market tho.

[SwampDonkey]

Looks like two aspen species (we also call poplar in the north east). I see large-tooth and trembling. The large-tooth has rougher deeper furrow bark at the bottom and often sort of a pink huge in the smoother upper trunk. Sometimes white blotched like rock maple. The leaves emerge with pubescence (hairs) on them in the spring but become bare. They also leaf later with the sugar maple and yellow birch and have orange fall foliage. Often confused in aerial photography for hardwood when taken in autumn. They don't look too old, lots of good growing ahead. Can't be much more than 25 years old.

[SPIKER]

We call them POPPLE here too, while Tulip Popular (Yellow Popular) grows much larger and lives longer often closer to a maple than POPPLE in use here yellow popular is real good for trim or siding.   

While POPPLE (also heard it called White popular or quaking aspen) everyone seems to say cut it push into a pile and set on fire.  dont try to boil sap with it I can tell you that it leaves a nasty taste in the syrup   >:(   Burns fast and steams pretty bad, rots fast and on my place just kills over in one season falls the next season.   It gets to maybe 20~24" often grows from runners and in clumps.   I have a big one was live 2 years ago dead last year snapped of in the middle last fall and has a big Owl Nest in it now at the top (40' up)  the top is already flat to the earth after 6 months...   few Red Oak just a bit over that has been down 4 years and they look pretty good.   then there are the dead Slippery Elm that are hard as rock and were dead when I bought the place.

Mark

[ahlkey]

It looks like quaking or tembling aspen to me.  The winter before last I cut 200 cords of quaking aspen for pulp and only kept for sawing 5,000 board feet of the larger 18+ inches butt logs that were straight and solid.  It hard to tell diameter from the picture but I do not see any conks on those trees which is a good sign.   Smaller aspen trees tend to have more compression wood which is similar to juvenile wood making warping more common during and after drying.  The problem I have found with sizable quaking aspen is that they usually go bad before they get too large but these look pretty good.
 
I spent a couple of days taking the advanced Kiln Drying & Sawmill course from Gene Wengert (Wood Professor) and learned a lot about what you can do to get better results.  With quaking aspen I have found sawing Aspen equally from both sides can help a lot to balance the stress in the log.  I also do not use anything near the heart of the log (pith) and try to use only the large butt logs.  With a lot of the pallet mills who take aspen bolts here they primarily only take the butt log or one log upwards. Likewise, make sure you do good lumber stacking, weight your stack, and seal the ends.  If you kiln dry have a good kiln schedule but I always place it first under my air drying shed.   Hope this helps you.