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Selling Squares of Bark

Started by POSTON WIDEHEAD, January 07, 2018, 02:08:31 PM

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POSTON WIDEHEAD

I was looking on the Sawmill Exchange and saw a rig that takes the bark off logs.
My interest would be taking the bark off Poplar in the spring.

The rig was $2000 and comes with 2 pallets of bark...and it looked like Poplar.

Any of you selling or have a market for bark sheets?

I've seen some really nice tables and bars etc. with Poplar bark applied to them.
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Jeff

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Lawg Dawg

I've seen it used for siding up around Blowing Rock, NC....looks like it's cut into squares and installed like shingles, on high end new construction homes and remodels.
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moodnacreek

The only place I've ever seen [birch bark squares] it was at Specialty lumber in Bloomingdale, N.Y.  Also some years back Northern Logger magazine did an article on white birch being debarked standing prior to being logged. 

Corley5

I read something a while back about it being used for siding and roofing.  Interesting :)
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nativewolf

DonP was posting about doing this, even had some pictures in his gallery I think, maybe he can chime in here.

I was shocked by how much he said it was worth but maybe a very shallow market.  Or, it could be the next slab market.  There is a reason that person is selling.
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POSTON WIDEHEAD

Quote from: nativewolf on January 07, 2018, 05:29:52 PM


......but maybe a very shallow market.


What I was thinking. Its almost like it should be classified as primitive material.
The older I get I wish my body could Re-Gen.

Chuck White

I watched a TV show today called "Barnwood Builders" and they showed an old house that was covered (sided) with Poplar bark!

The bark was put on vertically and the pieces looked to be about 12-18 inches long!

Interesting!
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POSTON WIDEHEAD

I watch it sometimes Chuck but have not seen that one.
The older I get I wish my body could Re-Gen.

Chuck White

IIRC, this show was filmed in West Virginia!
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With basic mechanical skills and the ability to read you can maintain a Woodmizer  LT40!

starmac

Thanks for that link Jeff. I would have never thought of bark as a permanent building product, but they are claiming 80 year life, interesting.
I have to wonder if they treat it with something.
When the guy that peels the white spruce house logs does them the bark comes off in one piece, and lays there flattened probably 6 feet wide and anywhere from 30 to 60 feet long, must be a reason that poplar is the only kind mentioned for construction though.
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moodnacreek

The Adirondack museum they used to have a spruce bark covered shack on display.                       

Don P

The town of Linville, NC is a summer resort community developed when the railroads came in. Many of the buildings were originally chestnut bark clad. Nowadays it's tulip poplar bark being used on many upscale vacation homes. There is an old school building in the next county, 2 stories and what I suppose was the headmasters cottage both entirely clad in poplar bark. I think I'm remembering a small poplar bark building in the middle of Courtland, VA as well. I can't remember if it was in the thread from early this summer when we were just playing around with it or from somebody local but I have a scrap here that says Barkclad in Asheville was buying 40"+ long x 12" wide at $1.50/sf. We got busy and I never pursued it. W shuffled the three 4'+ wide x9' long sheets out of the way in the haybarn the other day, that would be nice wallpaper in a room. Oh, I was in a friends new house a month or two ago, they had sweet birch bark as wall covering in one of the baths, very nice. It was sourced out of Boone and I believe there is a buyer around there as well. Pickup and small trailerloads move out of here heading that way early summer.

starmac

Quote from: moodnacreek on January 07, 2018, 06:27:13 PM
The Adirondack museum they used to have a spruce bark covered shack on display.                     

That is interesting.
Where the logger I hauled for that dealt in house logs kept his logs, basically looks like the ground is paved with the bark. he retired so there will be no fresh bark there, kind of wish I had heard of this when he was still having logs peeled, would have been fun to have done a little experimenting.
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   Neat video of the poplar bark processing. I'm tempted to try to save the bark off the next poplars I cut. Not sure if I could still salvage the one in my yard right now. I twisted a squirrel out of a big one in the pasture yesterday and was thinking about cutting it next time I need one as its a big, tall, straight tree with easy access but I know for a fact the hole in base goes up at least 10' so the butt log would be of low yield. May be better to just leave as a den tree.

   The Barnyard Builder guys (Bowe) mentioned above are based out of Lewsiburg WV in Greenbrier County about 40 miles away. My wife's cousin married one of their cousins. I operated/trained a Wisconsin doctor with a local farm on his LT50 and after training he walked me through his log home they had built for him. Their workmanship was very high end. They also built a cabin on an island in the New River about 6 miles away last summer. The had to use a helicopter for some of the lifts although at low water you can drive a normal pick up truck to the site.
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Peter Drouin

Wonder if they saw the rest of the log.
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starmac

Surely they do, what a waste if they didn't.

Interesting video, I wonder how it would do if just air dried.
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Don P

It air dries quickly and will curl up into uselessness in a day or few. Our mason said they lay it on one pallet till there is a small stack and then ratchet strap another pallet over it. One of the buyers did have some kind of system to certify you, apparently there is some poaching of bark off live trees which just wastes an otherwise perfectly good tree and doesn't recover a fraction of the bark. They don't want any defects from handling or dirt from dragging so it would be drop and peel immediately, we didn't have that kind of time this time. You have to be careful scoring it not to go too deep and get into your boards. We were peeling everything for the log barn but had already drug and handled the logs too much. When the bark was slipping my partner called me scissorhands, my preferred method was to have a felling wedge in each hand and work my way down the log popping the bark off, we were getting the bark off much of the time in one piece 21' long. You have to take care around those little branch stubs lurking under the bark. With bigger logs a sticker did good while the other one unpeeled and supported the bark. As the summer wore on and the bark stuck it was drawknives and cussin.

starmac

On the spruce here, the bark easily comes off in one piece of the winter cut logs. But there is a short window of time you have to do it when the weather starts warming up.
The ones I have been around has been skidding, but on snow, the logs have never touched dirt, a guy might be able to get by with that, the bark doesn't look affected.
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Magicman

It's my understanding that you would want to fell the Poplar tree in the Spring when the tree is waking up from dormancy.
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WDH

I have peeled poplar bark off a tree in the Spring a number of years ago to make a bark berry bucket.

Like this:

https://survivalsherpa.wordpress.com/2016/10/09/how-to-make-an-appalachian-berry-bucket-from-tree-bark/
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Southside

Quote from: Magicman on January 07, 2018, 08:52:57 PM
It's my understanding that you would want to fell the Poplar tree in the Spring when the tree is waking up from dormancy.

Around here by mid April poplar bark begins to slip, and does so until about July.  Picture what would happen if you grabbed a banana that had been peeled and soaked in oil then wrapped the peel back around it, that is what grabbing a poplar log with a grapple is like when the stuff is really slipping, there are times the log will just shoot out of the grapple and you are chasing it around, it's funny for the first 3 seconds.   
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barbender

Our Aspen up here "self peels" from about mid May through June, it messes with the harvester's measuring systems and is not fun to haul on the forwarder, I've seen guys go home early after getting frustrated with springtime aspen.

I've also read of Birch being used for roof shingles long ago in Scandinavian countries. Paper birch (or Baltic in their case) is very impermeable to water, which is also why birch rots so fast if the bark is on it.
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