Tulip Tree Uses?

[Jay C. White Cloud]

Hi JimF,

I concur.  I have been asked directly in the past by clients if they can use Tulip Poplar for a timber frame.  I tell them yes, with the caveat that that the wood needs to be assessed by a professional of some type, if the Timber Wright does not have any experience working with the wood and/or didn't get to see the trees the lumber is coming from.  I like your description of it's characteristics of being "brash."  I've seen identical 100 mm x 150 mm (4"x6") timbers one being solid as a rock and the other snapping with ease.

Regards,

Jay

[jimF]

Normal lumber will splinter or have a ragged break surface.  Brash lumber will have an almost square flat break surface.  I still have a sample from once while cutting 1" poplar lumber for furniture stock I dropped a piece from radial arm saw height and it broke almost as clean as a cut. 

 

[beenthere]

A brash break because of decay.

[brendonv]

Interesting table, wow!

I bought shed plans from Jim, I am now hoping to turn those logs into a small timber frame to act as a small rope storage, and saw workshop for my business.

We need more details than that. :D Do you still have that boring machine? Are your chisels sharp? Do you have heat in your garage yet?

Hey Dave!

I have plans for a 8x12 frame, three bent.  I sold the boring machine I found at the flea market, I want to make some sort of jig for a power drill to drill at a right angle.  Chisels are not ideal, I've got to dig up that thread at the TH with the instructions on sharpening.  I've got the 1.5", 2", and corner chisels.  Ideally I need a slick but the flea markets shut down for winter.  I've got the stove setting in it's resting place, the pipe measured.  Ordering it this week. 

[jimF]

Beenthere, While decayed wood does exhibit brashness, there was no decay in this lumber. This is from growth patterns.  The cellulose and lignin content and locations are not normal.  Also notice the slight green color.

[Dave Shepard]

You can get by without a slick. I would just concentrate on sharpening the chisel that matches your mortises. They are probably all 1.5" or 2". When I am cutting tenons I usually just use the chisel to pare with, saves changing tools. I mostly use my slick when I'm cleaning up large areas, like scarf joints or large lapped joints. If you can find a decent bit for the power drill, you can usually get away with eye-balling the hole. Through mortises you bore half from each side, so you don't have to hit the right spot coming out the other side, which you couldn't do with a boring machine either. Looking forward to seeing the progress. My offer still stands, you get everything together and I'll stop down sometime.

[brendonv]

Thank you, appreciate it.

[Okrafarmer]

Normal lumber will splinter or have a ragged break surface.  Brash lumber will have an almost square flat break surface.  I still have a sample from once while cutting 1" poplar lumber for furniture stock I dropped a piece from radial arm saw height and it broke almost as clean as a cut. 

I have noticed, that among the dozens of tree species we cut on a regular basis, white pine and tulip poplar are the two that shatter the most upon impact with the ground.

[Jay C. White Cloud]

I have spoken to a few Dendrologist about this phenomenon and there seems to be a few theories.  We are all excepting that there is not seen or unseen, fungal activity in the wood we speak of.  From there we move to the type of dropping impact and moisture content, which seems to effect some species more than most when green.  American Coffee Tree, in my experience, shatters more like glass or plastic, than it does wood when green, and this is a very strong wood when dry.  These species that behave this way, do not respond well to sudden impact and fiber moisture content seems to contribute to it.  Then there may also be some form of cellular abnormality that takes place.  It seem to happen more near the crown, but can accrue anywhere along the trunk.

[Okrafarmer]

Yes, most of the shattering I have observed in tulip trees has been confined to the upper 30% of the tree's length, including limbs and sometimes the main trunk above a certain height. I had always assumed the entire tree was weak, and that the upper parts shattered because they were smaller and absorbed the bulk of the kinetic energy from being felled. I wonder if the bulk of the lower logs are much stronger, inch for inch? They may very well be, especially since there are usually very few knots below the 40' mark. But maybe even the fiber of the wood itself is stronger. I don't know.  :P

[jimF]

The soft greenish colored wood in yellow poplar that is softer and less dense I assume is from decay because of the excessive reduced density.  The brash material does not have lower density than normal wood so I am assuming no decay. Reaction wood, tension wood in hardwoods and compression wood in conifers, are from cellular abnormalities.  The fibrils - cellulose and lignin are laid down in the cell wall differently than normal wood.  This is controlled by the chemistry that goes on during cell wall formation and is influenced by gravity, light and stresses.  This also goes on in juvenile wood very common in conifers in center of the log.  Similar processes can be occurring  in yellow poplar trunk for some unknown reason to cause the brashness.

[WDH]

All yellow poplar heartwood is green as is its cousin, cucumber tree.  The green wood that I have seen in yellow poplar is the heartwood and not a result of decay.

[Jay C. White Cloud]

I concur with WDH,  the green is a naturally occurring coloration, (sometime in rare cases, if your lucky, purple,) it all is u.v. or photo sensitive and will turn a warm brown color.  Sometimes you can get the purple to stay, but I haven't mastered that alchemy completely yet.

Most of the fungal activity in Tulip Poplar is cream colored from what I have observed, and you can find it, occasionally, spalted, but only in the light cream tones.

[jimF]

Green is not the natural color of poplar heartwood and wood does not become soft as it turns to heartwood.  Heartwood and sapwood have two different means of decay protect: sapwood is active along the lines of our immune system, heartwood has a passive one containing chemicals to prohibit decay.  Some species have less chemicals then others in the heartwood; one of them being poplar.  Thereby, more succeptable to decay of the heartwood

[Jay C. White Cloud]

Green is not the natural color of poplar heartwood

Hi JimF,

You will have to enplane that one to me?  :  I've never seen the hardwood any other color, other than purple/red, and the is very rare from my experience.  The sap wood is cream and the heartwood is green in everyone of the Tulip Poplars I have ever seen, other than the normal color change through oxidation. 

The wood is also rarely attacked by parasites, weather resistant and one of the reason it was a common "canoe wood," for some very large water vessels.  It is common, in it's region, for traditional log cabins.

Regards,

jay

[jimF]

While the center of the log is often green, heartwood can have the same color as the sapwood.  Purple to purplish black is considered mineral streaks, even if it involves a large volume.  Often the green area is soft, indicating decay, but not all the time.  Often the brash area is the same color as the sapwood. So making an all encompassing statement like: 1) all heartwood is green or purple, or 2) all green colored wood is decay, is not appropriate.

  The brashness in yellow poplar is more associated with cellular growth abnormalities, tension wood and such.  Softness next to hard sapwood suggests decay.
I would not commit to any more generalization then that pertaining to yellow poplar/color and soundness of wood.

[Okrafarmer]

If you find four or more colors, consistently, in one log, you are lucky. You have found Rainbow Poplar, and can charge a premium to unsuspecting woodworkers!

[Dave Shepard]

I haven't seen any brashyness, but I have noticed it will split lengthwise when somebody drops a bunch off the forklift from a second story barn window. :D Any tulip I've sawn has had green heartwood.

[Okrafarmer]

It's always green in the middle, unless you get those bonus colors!

However, let's not discount the fact that some people's eyes see greens and yellows differently from others!

[Jay C. White Cloud]

Hi JimF,

Just so I clear, you have seen Tulip Poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) with all light colored wood, both sap and heart, no green-no color distinction?  How often do you see that and what region?

Regards,

jay

[jimF]

Jay,
Yes. tulip poplar, yellow poplar, Magnoliaceae Liriodendron tulipifera, tulip poplar, white wood, fiddletree (I had to look it up to remember some of them ) no green or yellow coloration in the whole large trees.  Often ( never stop to calculate the %) and in Virginia.

[Jay C. White Cloud]

Thanks JimF,

I didn't wan't to "front load" you too much or have my questions sound like I didn't believe you experienced all white wood.  The scientist in me knew that I had to keep the questions vague, but as soon as you said Virginia, it clicked.  This spot in Virginia wouldn't be within, say 50 mile of the cost line would it?

Thank's, jay

[Okrafarmer]

as soon as you said Virginia, it clicked.  This spot in Virginia wouldn't be within, say 50 mile of the cost line would it?

say_what

[Jay C. White Cloud]

Even'n Okrafarmer,

I'm not 100% sure of the reason, (minerals in the soil perhaps?) but I had done some big dangerous take downs for a client where the trees had to be climbed and dropped in sections.  Then the next job was assessing for a Challenge Course project.  All of these had been coastal Virginia, (the name is escaping my brain,) but I remember the wood. It was Tulip Poplar and the wood, in the round, I didn't mill it, was all cream color.  When I asked a few folks about it, they stated that was the normal color.  I have never had it come up before, now I'm real curious.  Maybe some of our Forester types will "chime in," and tell us what they know.

Regards,  jay

[WDH]

Every yellow poplar log that I have seen, and I have seen thousands and thousands of these logs from timber harvest sites, on log trucks, and at mill yards, they have all had green heartwood.  Interesting  .