Author Topic: Cottonwood/Poplar 2x6's (Read 1832 times)

twostroke_blood · « **on:** March 21, 2005, 06:59:43 pm »

Im wondering if anyone has any experience making 2x6's out of cottonwood or poplar ? The logs are 30-36 inch diameter, and they were cut two weeks ago. Im pretty sure its cottonwood but im not really sure of the difference between cottonwood and poplar.

bberry · « **Reply #1 on:** March 21, 2005, 07:19:26 pm »

Probably not much diff between the two. They should be good. I have used a lot of poplar for two by and like it. Don't use them in any place where moisture is a problem since thay have very little rot resistance!

sjh · « **Reply #2 on:** March 21, 2005, 09:53:06 pm »

My understanding is cotten wood is a type of popular. Cotten wood is all white and will have a stringy look to it when cut. Another type of popular is Tulip. That has a greenish/yellow color with a bronish/black heart. I know a saw mill that cut cotten wood for a house and barn. The owner used it right off the mill. This was several years ago and it is still standing.

twostroke_blood · « **Reply #3 on:** March 22, 2005, 06:11:36 am »

This stuff is white as can be all the way through. It has a very thick bark.

OneWithWood · « **Reply #4 on:** March 22, 2005, 09:06:31 am »

Sounds like cotton wood. I have never used cottonwood for anything but the structural members of my barn are built out of big tooth aspen which is in the same family but slightly denser. I believe tulip poplar is in the magnolia family. I am siding the barn with tulip poplar as it is insect resistant.

Dana · « **Reply #5 on:** March 22, 2005, 09:53:05 am »

Two stroke, If it is poplar and anything like the kind here in Michigan you may want to do your building with it when it is still green. When the wood dries out it is difficult to drive a nail into it. As was said keep it out of wet conditions as it will deteriorate quickly. A lot of farm buildings around here use it for rafters ect and we have a lot of snow load so it is obviously a good structural wood. But make sure of the species of poplar first.

spencerhenry · « **Reply #6 on:** March 22, 2005, 10:17:14 am »

here in colorado we have a different kind of cottonwood. narrowleaf. i milled about 4mbf a couple of years ago, mostly into beams, some 2x. every piece warped horribly.resawed some of it later and seemed to be ok. cut into 2x6, it probably would be easier to keep straight, but pin it down as much as possible. i think cottonwood is probably a better wood than people give it credit for. i ended up giving almost all of mine away.

BW_Williams · « **Reply #7 on:** March 23, 2005, 09:00:00 am »

I've had good luck with cottonwood 2x6s, we decked one trailer with it green, then just decked another trailer with it air dried for a year and they were fairly straight. You may find hidden defects inside of the logs, but if they are free, mill 'em up. I believe what we have out here is Black Cottonwood. BWW

Corley5 · « **Reply #8 on:** March 23, 2005, 11:54:05 am »

My house is framed and sheathed with big tooth aspen. It's good stuff but nail it up fresh off the mill. Ardox or ring shank nails are best. Once it starts drying it can warp and twist pretty bad but if nailed good it'll stay straight. After it's dry it's easier to drill a hole than try to drive a nail in it.

twostroke_blood · « **Reply #9 on:** March 23, 2005, 04:19:17 pm »

I guess I should have mentioned i'm sawing this stuff for someone else. I dont think he's planning on using it right off. It was my general understanding that it would be a bear to nail in after it drys. My concern is that it will all warp, and the customer will be wasting his money.

Ianab · « **Reply #10 on:** March 23, 2005, 04:49:00 pm »

What can do is advise your customer to stack it properly, with lots of weight or cargo straps to keep it straight as it dries. And suggest he buys a heavy duty battery drill so he can drill nail holes when he eventually uses it

It's more a matter of knowing how to treat the wood and what end uses it can be used for. If you warn him of the problems and how to overcome them then you are doing him a big favour and it shouldn't come back to haunt you.

ian

twostroke_blood · « **Reply #11 on:** March 23, 2005, 06:19:42 pm »

Ian, That sounds like good advice. Thanks. Oh yea did I mention this is my very first job ?

( With a Sawmill that is) . The customer is aware of this fact, so hopefully he'll cut me some slack

beenthere · « **Reply #12 on:** March 23, 2005, 07:10:10 pm »

I've heard of cutting cottonwood into 2" thick flitch's, and stacking them to dry with the bark edges (wane) on them. Then after they are 'dry' in the stack, rip out the width dimensions desired. It's claimed to relieve some of the stresses that are in the log that cause the ugly crook (warp) and higher recovery is the end result.

Iowa State had some studies several years back to determine if such techniques (called SDR for Saw-Dry-Rip) worked for their cottonwood. Seems Minnesota Dept. of Forestry did such work on aspen.

I just tried a search on
"SDR Cottonwood" and found this report:

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplrp/fplrp435.pdf#search='SDR%20cottonwood'

interesting idea

Kelvin · « **Reply #13 on:** March 23, 2005, 08:54:15 pm »

Having sawn a bit of cottonwood i'll say there is quite a difference between cottonwood and poplar. Poplar is quite a good, stable workable wood which is used often as a secondary wood in furniture making. Cottonwood has none of these properties even though it is in the same family as poplar, like my brother and i are from the same family and i'm nice and he's... well, anyhow, if you take some poplar and some cottonwood and try splitting them you will know right away what you have. Poplar pops apart nice like, but the fiberous nature of cottonwood makes it so you have to keep wacking it apart further and further and your wedges will go all the way to the bottom before the thing kinda falls apart, but still hangs on with tenacity, at which point you think you can merely tear the remaining parts loose, but noooo... you end up going back to the truck and getting your chainsaw and chasing the guy around with it who gave you cottonwood to split.
Actually i take any log i can get, but like the guys mentioned gotta know how to use it. Nail it green, or resaw to straighten back out. The sinewy nature has its pros and cons, mostly cons, but it gives it extra breaking resliancy, though not being able to handle the weather makes it not so suitable to things that could benefit from this nature. I think Klompen are often made from cottonwood and willow (Dutch wooden shoes). THe sinewy nature also leads to a "hairy"finish, in more ways then one if you are actually trying to sand it smooth you will have a hairy experience trying to get rid of all the fuzz.
I've found its best not to"live" (from top to bottom w/o flipping) saw a cant, but continue to relieve the stress in the log by rotating it. The log will move the most higher up the tree for some reason as well, with the butt being the most stable. Saw oversize for construction lumber, and resaw to straighten out, which is wise no matter the wood, just more so with the squirrely stuff. Its light for a hardwood which is nice when building a house, as most hardwoods are terribly hard on the back to move around. Its more like pine in that regard, but much stronger. Power nails fine when green.

twostroke_blood · « **Reply #14 on:** March 24, 2005, 09:28:17 pm »

Thanks for all the good information. I'm going to do the job on saturday . Wish me luck

OneWithWood · « **Reply #15 on:** March 25, 2005, 10:05:38 am »

Coon · « **Reply #16 on:** March 25, 2005, 01:06:21 pm »

Up here in east central Saskatchewan we have poplar and I have cut thousands of bdft of the stuff. Nail it down green as you were told by earlier responses. If it is going to be used as rough lumber for building purposes outside use as coarse toothed blade as you can get your hands on. Reason being- using finer toothed blades does not allow the moisture to be released as easily and this is where you will get your tendancy for warpage. Band the lumber piles as tight as you can for drying if you decide that you want to dry it before use. Poplar tends to twist and crack if not carefully looked after. Poplar is also a good hardwood once dried for furniture stock. If you are going to use it for this purpose I do suggest a kiln for drying as it tends to discolor on the outside and mold if you don't.

If it smells like rotten socks when you are sawing it----chances are it is poplar.

Timo · « **Reply #17 on:** March 26, 2005, 01:06:15 am »

Some friends of mine spend a sweaty day with a chainsaw mill making beams out of what they thought was fir - but turned out to be cottonwood. I guess the corrogated bark threw them off a bit. It made great sleepers for their bandsaw rail bed later on.....

One use I have heard of for Cottonwood is as an alternative to cedar in sauna's, for people that are allergic to cedar. I guess it is a low density wood (like Cedar) so it doesn't burn you when you sit/ lie on it. Anyone else here of this use?

Lots of Hybrid Poplar was planted in my area (South Western BC/ Washington) years ago as a fast growing pulp wood, other then that I don't know of anyone milling for dimensional use, much less structural use - learn something every day!

twostroke_blood · « **Reply #18 on:** March 27, 2005, 08:32:55 am »

O.K I Broke in my new sawmill on the big cottonwood. I've got lots of pictures but I'm gonna need help posting them, if someone can guide me I'd sure appreciate it . Its funny I dont mind tackling a big cottonwood first time out, but computer crap still intimidates me.

Oh yea ..... My Alpina Pro 120 absolutely ROCKS !!!!

OneWithWood · « **Reply #19 on:** March 27, 2005, 10:18:54 am »

Two-stroke,
Congrats on the cottonwood. For help with the pics click on the 'Forum Extras' at the top of the page and go to the knowledge base. There is a very good and clear write-up on how to post pics.

Jeff · « **Reply #20 on:** March 27, 2005, 10:28:49 am »

Actually, much of the knowledge base article is irrelevant since it is for the old photo systm and not our new gallery. Parts of it, on photo compression are still valid, but uploading and attaching is different now. Good instuctions can be now found in this thread:
http://www.forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=10536.0

OneWithWood · « **Reply #21 on:** March 27, 2005, 10:45:00 am »

Jeff,
Are you sure someone didn't sneak in and update it on you? Those were the instructions I followed when I posted my last pics. It even intructed me to create an album. Maybe you had better check to see if I set up the album correctly

dave1 · « **Reply #22 on:** March 27, 2005, 07:38:44 pm »

Here in the land of the Nodaks, The dominate tree is the cottonwood. and when a new housing developement goes in there are always cotonwood trees that come out. most come out with an excavator. by the roots . But at this very minute there is at least 4 city blocks of full sized cottonwood trees in piles, waiting for some one to do something with. I think they will be burned in time ,could they be used for pulp , or maybe presto-logs. We have hugh stands of cottonwood by the river, then the army core of engeniers changed the river level and killed thousands of these trees. I just think that because of my waistnot wantnot way of thinking there should be a beter way ....Thanks guys dave1

twostroke_blood · « **Reply #23 on:** March 27, 2005, 08:29:32 pm »

Maybe I can e-mail the pics to someone else and they can post them

oooooops how did this happen

Turning the son-of-a-gun was the trickiest part . I probably should have started with something smaller for my very first attemp with my new sawmill. I've never used one before.

RacinRex · « **Reply #24 on:** March 28, 2005, 10:45:12 am »

So Twostroke,
Do you enjoy the Hud-son mill or what? Let us know what your thoughts are on it so far.

and remember nothing smells quite as nice as Klotz on a moist spring morning where the fog just envelopes you with the sweet stench of pre-mix. ;-)

twostroke_blood · « **Reply #25 on:** March 28, 2005, 06:15:25 pm »

O.K RacinRex I'll give ya my thoughts thus far. It tows really well

Hud-Son is about three hundred miles from me, and the thing pulled nice the whole way home (70-75 mph). I addressed the fact that they dont support the forum with them, and they gave me a pretty arrogant response, "we doubled our sales last year without the forum" verbatim. I can tell you the thing is ruggedly made. The log in the pictures rolled off onto my fender when i tried to roll it

. I learned that you cant back up in a cut without pulling the band/blade off

. In fact I learned that after only three attemps. I really like the 23H.P Briggs motor, it runs very smoothly. I must say im very impressed with the accuracy of the cut. The thing of it is, I dont have anything to compare it too. Also I'm sure I wont cut anything much over 24" dia. again. What kind of mills do you guys have? What do you like /disslike about your mills ?

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Author Topic: Cottonwood/Poplar 2x6's (Read 1832 times)