Aspen, Popple, Poplar or whatever you call it. Best use for it?

On this parcel of land I am buying there are quite a few nice straight 20-28" diameter Quaking Aspens (populus tremuloides) and some Big Toothed Aspen (Populus Grandidentata) as well. We will have to take most of them down to clear the lot for our buildings. We will be having a sawyer with a band saw mill come later this summer to mill a bunch of maple, ash, and hemlock logs that will also be taken down for site work.

My question is, never having worked with poplar, is it worth having these popple logs milled up for any purpose, and for what? The house and sugarhouse will be timber framed with hemlock timbers, and we will be using the ash and maple for interior finish. Can popple be used for rough framing material? I know it is light and brittle but could it be used for non-structural framing or siding? Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.

I know we could use it for sugarwood but these trees easily have two defect free straight 16' saw logs in each and it seems a shame to just turn them into firewood.

Popple green can be used for roof boards. If you have painted casings it works great too because the knots do not stain through. With the yellows, greens, and sometimes violets it can also make a beautiful flooring. I once milled out some for floor with just a simple ship lap and then took cherry plugs and filled in where I had screwed the flooring down. Took a lot of time by looked amazing when finished.

I use popple 2x6's for rafters and studs. also good roof boards as Moser said. As long as it is used in an application where it is pretty dry it is fine. I avoid using it for sills and don't like it for siding (I do know of one local Amishman who has an entire 100x34 barn built entirely of popple. Been standing about 10 years now and no visible sign of decay.)

aspen and poplar are two different species. poplar is a good building material. Aspen is good for nothing!

Agree with Dave y...poplar and aspen are very different. Tulip popular is great for 2x lumber Aspen is useless

I think weve had this discussion on here before. I think its a regional vocabulary thing which confuses some people. DaveY and maplwwalnut are correct. Make sure the wood is tulip poplar not quaking aspen before cutting into boards. Around here people often call Aspen poplar and others refer to tulip poplar as poplar.

In fact some real old barns have tulip poplar siding, usually board abd batten. As long as it can dry quickly and is not in contact with the ground it will last a very long time.

If it is saw tooth aspen that you have, the stems of the leafs will be flat which causes then them to wave in a light breeze, they will send up root sprouts when you cut them.
They are very tough to get rid of if you want to completely get rid of then. When they are cut or dying they will start to send up sprouts from round the tree not just the stump like other trees.

As for a use, not much of anything. Aspen doesn't have a real high BTU content like oak or locust.

I however do burn it, mixed in with better woods. I also sawed some and made my hunting blind with it. I assembled it next to the mill, then slung it and carried it to my hunting spot with my 4 ton excavator, with roof and all. Worked well. It has been in the current location for about 6 seasons so far. The only paint I used was some black spray to do a camo pattern like limbs in all directions.

I am not speaking about tulip poplar, which is not in the poplar (populus) family. Once again, I am inquiring about uses for Quaking or Big-Toothed Aspen. In many parts of VT people refer to these trees and cottonwood (populus deltoides) as popple. Not sure why but that may be confusing to some if people refer to tulip poplar as "popple" in other areas. Maybe people around here do call tulip poplar popple, but I sure don't.

Not trying to start a debate about tree id here as I have that covered. Saw mills do cut aspen here and it does indeed have uses as lumber. It is commonly used for ski and snowboard cores as it is light and flexible.

Back to my original question: It it worth sawing these logs for building material or should I buck them up for sugar wood? I'm not looking to leave these on the ground to rot as they are in the way and I am not willing to accept that they are good for nothing.

I saw a a lot of aspen and cottonwood for framing lumber and sheeting. If its there then use it, cull wood can be burned. There used to be a market for aspen veneer,not sure but used to be a mill in whitehall Ny that made plywood. There used to be an ad in the Northern Logger looking for aspen in southern Adirondacks.

theres not much to aspen, poplar, it seems to soak up moisture like a sponge. but I do mix in with other wood. Kinda similar to bass wood work pretty good in the evap when VERY dry and a hot fire. not too good in the woodstove burns too quick and leaves no coals good for chilly mornings in the fall and spring, enough to take the chill out then shut r down!!! I hear it can be good for flooring with a thick seal but its pretty soft so maybe good for a low traffic area maybe.... just thinking

The neighbors have been cutting the quaking aspen/popple for years for barn siding, so we started a few years ago for coops. as long as it isn't exposed to constant water, it seems to be pretty durable. Many of our larger poplar >20 in have some heartrot on the botton section. Nail it up wet is the advice I've gotten.

I have heard the same advice, fasten it when it is green. At this point we are planning on milling the good quality logs for siding the sugarhouse board and batten. We'll be using some of it for sugar wood as well.

Well, the logs are piled and the mill will be coming in the next couple weeks. Not all popple in the pile, but most of it is.

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We have been using poplar for interior trim for a few years with good success. I have seen it used as exterior siding a few times and it looked good several years later. The only issue I saw was where rain splashed up near the ground and there was algae and mildew growing well on the north side.
My guess is you'll out grow the sugarhouse long before the poplar wears out.

Even though I have a bandsaw mill, I mostly use poplar for sugar wood and would not saw it unless someone if paying me to custom saw.

I've tried to saw boards out of poplar (quaking aspen) but they seem to warp and are harder to nail and seem to split. my neighbor has used it successfully for interior trim and furniture.

General Stark has it right on the genus and species.
Tulip poplular is not a popular at all but a lirodendron. Common names are realitively useless when a discussion that covers such a wide geographical area is talked about. Latin names are the only thing to use.
Here in the midwest-Minnesota/Wisconsin popular tremuloides and populus grandidentata (sawtooth aspen)as well as populus Deltoides (Eastern cottonwood) are all used for lumber in varying sitituations.
as long as it is kept dry it will last for a very long time.
The inside of my sauna I did thirty years ago in quaking aspen and it is perfect to this day. My deer hunting shack is 40 years old made from quaking aspen logs and is as solid as the day we built it.
As firewood on the farm it burn fairly fast and is not the best wood for home heating but 80% of the wood we burned on the farm was popular.
In the arch it would make a nice hot fire.
Woodsman

Here in our area in Wisconsin, "popple" has a reputation as one of the toughest pieces of lumber you can get. You can about bend it double and it won't break. Also known to "hold" a nail very tight. Prone to dry crooked and/or warp.
A fella a few miles from here built a cabin using popple logs stood vertically, like and old west fort. It is on a slab, and I wouldn't doubt the butts are elevated just a bit off the cement. I cut a bunch when we built the house in 76 and I do not recommend it for studs. Maybe rafters and sheeting boards. Like has been said, nail it together green?

Part of a rhyme that I remember from childhood about trees and their properties went something like this, when the poplar was "talking:"

"Though my cousin Oak be strong and stout, keep me DRY and I'll last him out!"

It was a very old rhyme long before I was born.

Just my two cents. What poplar I've dried, and kept dry, never any sign of decay.

The **** pile got bigger. Now there is more quaking aspen, some hemlock and some veneer ash. We will saw it and use it all. Skeptics be ****ed.

Oh and, I'm not talking about Tulip Poplar. This is Quaking Aspen and I don't care what anyone says we will mill it, and screw it on for siding.
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Originally Posted by lastwoodsman

General Stark has it right on the genus and species.
Tulip poplular is not a popular at all but a lirodendron. Common names are realitively useless when a discussion that covers such a wide geographical area is talked about. Latin names are the only thing to use.
Here in the midwest-Minnesota/Wisconsin popular tremuloides and populus grandidentata (sawtooth aspen)as well as populus Deltoides (Eastern cottonwood) are all used for lumber in varying sitituations.
as long as it is kept dry it will last for a very long time.
The inside of my sauna I did thirty years ago in quaking aspen and it is perfect to this day. My deer hunting shack is 40 years old made from quaking aspen logs and is as solid as the day we built it.
As firewood on the farm it burn fairly fast and is not the best wood for home heating but 80% of the wood we burned on the farm was popular.
In the arch it would make a nice hot fire.
Woodsman

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I just met someone that told me that Scandanavians use Aspen for sauna interiors. I am going to try this as I have more Aspen than I know what to do with(as you can see by the photo) and no cedar.

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Originally Posted by PerryW

Even though I have a bandsaw mill, I mostly use poplar for sugar wood and would not saw it unless someone if paying me to custom saw.

I've tried to saw boards out of poplar (quaking aspen) but they seem to warp and are harder to nail and seem to split. my neighbor has used it successfully for interior trim and furniture.

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This is why you should use screws and put it up green as the old timers tell me. I'll use stainless screws as I can take them out and use them again with more popple siding. Sort of like ss mainline fittings.:lol:

We made a good dent in the log pile last weekend and I now have about 1000 bd ft. of Aspen (Populus Grandidentata) (1x12,1x10,1x8,1x6) and about 500 bd. ft of Hemlock (4x4,2x6,1x6).

I am amazed by the quality of the aspen and we have many more logs still left to saw. We will definitely be using lots of it for the trim and other interior features in our future house.

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I have a sawmill too and have used aspen for several building projects. I made a solar kiln for drying boards, almost entirely from aspen. As long as it's not in direct contact with the ground, and you nail it up green, it makes good lumber.

Here in northern New York, we don't have Tulip Poplar, only four or five types of the less useful stuff. The local sawyers cut all they can find for pallets and 3x3 shipping cribs.

forget the popple, I just side the sugarhouse up real quick with this pine I just sawed!:lol:.

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Originally Posted by PerryW

forget the popple, I just side the sugarhouse up real quick with this pine I just sawed!:lol:.

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I would gladly take that pine off your hands. Unfortunately we have no pine on our property. Almost all hardwoods with a few nice big hemlocks we will be taking down for timbers for our house.

We have used popple (big tooth aspen) on several projects, framing lumber, sheathing, timbers, flooring and cabinets with mixed results. We did a timber frame for the sugarhouse with a few popple timbers and some of them bowed pretty good. You are much better off nailing it green. It was tempting to use since we had so much of it and a mill to saw it. We ended up selling most of it for pulp and using the pine and spruce/fir for building materials. I would not use it again for any cabinet work. The reality is with all the work that goes into cutting trees, sawing, stacking...you might as well use the species with less issues if you have it. I was thinking of building a little log cabin with popple thinking that the weight of the logs would ward off the bending.