Willow, Tulip Poplar to soft?

[tacks Y]

Planning a mixed hard wood floor. Are these two to soft to use for a floor? Plan to varnish to protect the surface, so will they dent to easy?  Thanks

[Den-Den]

In my opinion, Tulip Poplar would probably be OK but Willow is too soft for flooring.

[Magicman]

Yes, Willow is probably a bit softer but I wonder if there is enough difference between them to actually make a difference?  Black Willow pictures below:


 

Willow.


 
More Willow.  I have sawn many Mbf of both.


 
And the color variation can be dramatic from Willow log to log.


 



 
Two more instances showing Willow color variations.


 



Couple more and with a closeup.  All of the Willow that I have sawn has been used for wall paneling.

[tacks Y]

Magic, Very nice looking. I sawed some this winter (willow and it looked good) and now have some tulip to saw. I do not want to kiln it if it will to soft for a floor. Or maybe run it in the kiln and hit with a hammer to compare? A dent test?

[Don P]

I've run into tulip floors in old houses, the old painted floors. It works but is soft enough they do have character. I was in a house the other day that had white pine floors, it had been a restaurant at one time. They had character but were nice. Kind of depends on your expectations.

[kantuckid]

In nearby to me Morehead, KY (the #2 hardwood place in the world after Hickory, NC) and where I used to work in a tech school, they have been selling poplar flooring and paneling for over 20 years. A large mill owner there named Booge Armstrong was the first person I know of to begin milling poplar into flooring. It's quite suitable for residential flooring not high traffic flooring such as maple and oak serve better. Poplar mellows into a darker, warm tone, especially if it's not sealed with poly varnishes.
In the USA furniture industry, when stained it easily mimics cherry and walnut, lacking the grain interest but a very serviceable wood. If we didn't buy so much Asian rubberwood furniture in the USA poplar, given its high growth rate, and yield would easily serve as a bigger part of our wood industry.
Poplar has been looked toward as a framing lumber for stick built construction but mostly shunned  fort that use. makes an interesting topic for 2x4's, etc.. Lots of older homes in my area have poplar framing. A friend of mine used it for timbers in an A-frame home and was disappointed when it split to the heart. The log home industry considered it many years ago but disliked the splitting of log cants used in log walls. OTOH, many antique log homes were built from hewed poplar.
It is very easy to air dry, but yes those powder post beetles love the stuff! Larger sawmills here have dip tanks for lift sized bundles of the wood. 
About 10 miles west of me, a millwork company, who's been there maybe 25 years, buys sawn green poplar exclusively for millwork they mfg. after drying in their own kilns onsite. Mostly Hispanics work there FWIW.

[tacks Y]

My plan for flooring is mixed hard woods. So far I have sawn r/w oak, qs red oak, sycamore, blk and yel birch, locust, willow, elm, h/s maple, beech, blk gum. Sawing tulip now and have some rock oak and hickory to saw.  

[Don P]

The small house I just built was mostly poplar framing. I was running short when we got to the rafters so did them out of red oak, they guys were real happy that day :D. Borated everything.

The cabinet/millwork shop I worked in switched to mostly poplar for trim pretty quickly, it worked well and a good finish man can make it look great.

A friend had a house with QS sycamore floors, with that ray flecking they were very nice. We've got beech accumulating and drying for my partners sun room floor, still need to mill some more to get enough, that'll wear like iron. Stuart Flooring, one of the big flooring mills produces black locust flooring as a specialty, they market it as "Appalachian Gold". I think of it as the American teak.

[kantuckid]

Google ads shows me locust flooring everyday-maybe it's based on this forums visits? not that I buy flooring.
The log home industry tried yellow polar for wall logs, ect. and quit do to it's tendency in larger cants to split to the heart badly. In dimensional lumber it does fine.
The only black willow I've seen was in a tree book. Poplar has become a higher use species during my adulthood. FWIW, I have many BF of the stuff growing. it seems to age better in the woods than the oaks, must have better root systems as these 100 year rain years have toppled some dandy, healthy oaks.
My off grid cabin project will get some interesting floor species if your a wood freak like many found here. At age 76, "with wood piled all over the place"!!!, I'm gonna use some woods I've saved during my lifetime of wood for later piles. Red elm, walnut, cherry, cedar may all get a shot at flooring use.  I may use even some of my not so wormy chestnut stash for flooring. I tore the hay loft out of a barn so old it lacked worm holes, whats called pre-blight chestnut. Choices are use it before I'm gone, sell on the web to people who won't pay enough considering the extreme effort it took to collect or leave it to my sons, none of which do shop work for now.

[alan gage]

My off grid cabin project will get some interesting floor species if your a wood freak like many found here. At age 76, "with wood piled all over the place"!!!, I'm gonna use some woods I've saved during my lifetime of wood for later piles. Red elm, walnut, cherry, cedar may all get a shot at flooring use.

That will be an interesting look. I hope to see some pictures.

I lined the walls of my new wood shop with various species and really like the look. From memory there's red oak, spruce, red elm, american elm, ash, basswood, maple (some of it spalted), hackberry, and even a little bit of walnut. Here's a shot of one wall.



Alan

[Walnut Beast]

Looks awesome