I have two pretty large tulips two take down. They are both in the 120-130 ft tall and about 40-46 inches wide about 2ft up from the root swell. They both have a co-dom but the split is about 60-70 ft up. I’m planning to quarter saw all of it. Most I can afford at the moment is a chainsaw mill. I think I’ll go with a logosol, that set up seems to allow you to do the first two cuts of the quarter sawing as straight as you can with a chainsaw anyhow. I’m a finish carpenter so I saw the opportunity when I bought the property years ago. Thanks for the video !
One 22" diameter at chest high poplar yielded four 12' longs, which sawed into 105 2x4x12'.....worth over $1,000 at today's big box pricing. In Tennessee, we can use rough lumber to build our homes as long as it comes off your own property.
And that's only 2x4 prices..the cheapest piece of lumber sold. You should check the price on what big box stores are charging for that In 1x4x12. I bet you double your price.
@@hyzercreek Yeah its not a true poplar but that's what everyone calls it just like Eastern Red Cedar isn't cedar but 99% of people in Tennessee don't call it Juniper
I like larger poplar to mill. When you get down in the 10-12" diameter stuff, it tends to stress relieve a LOT on the mill......I've seen it arch 2" off the center of the mill as you saw. We too have a LOT of large poplar on our place. Most 2nd/3rd growth forests in the Appalachian region are that way.....big amount of logging took place in the 30-40-50's as the American chestnut was dying out, and the forest that came back is one of primarily poplar. I bought my place in 1982, and I'd estimate it was logged about 40 years before that, so my timber has another nearly 40 years on it.
@@boomer3150 Poplar is a genus in the willow family, there are many species, white poplar, big tooth aspen, lombardy poplar, white aspen, quaking aspen. All these are poplars. They have catkin flowers and drop seeds with cotton around them. THE TULIPTREE HAS YELLOW TULIP FLOWERS AND HARD SEEDS IS NOT EVEN REMOTELY RELATED TO POPLAR!!!! Stop calling them poplar.
I live in southeast ky, and worked around the Lexington ky area for 15 years. I've used enough yellow poplar lumber to cover half the country. We restored tobacco barns and converted a lot of them to horse barns. We used poplar are framing lumber cut as 2x6 and larger. Most of the footage was cut as 4/4 random width that we used as boxing. I've reboxed so many 100ft plus barns that I couldn't begin to count. I love poplar and have a lot on my little hilltop homestead myself. Great video!
@@brianwest9178 just knocking the old boxing off and replacing it with new. It's a good time to address any other issues with posts and wall purlins too
I have a ton of this on my property. Been really think about getting a sawmill for a season to mill up some wood.. itd be great to use whats there already.
Yellow poplar is in the code book...so is red oak, white oak, red maple, basswood, sweet gum and black gum. They'll keep adding more. It started with a concern over a potential shortfall in yellow pine but I think now has become an easy doctoral thesis, but the knowledge is still of value. So you can have the wood graded etc., ts very close to syp, so very strong, but not as hard or heavy.
TROY, all I have left is standing dead ash, been felling them over the past few years, wish I had a sawmill to get boards but, they are great for firewood! Now that the canopy opened up more, the maples are taken off, thought bout makin syrup but just a thought.
Excellent video and well timed. It’s my favorite to mill on our homestead and I was just discussing it with another TH-cam homesteader who had questions. I’ll be sharing this video with him. Thanks for the great content.
Not too many ppl have good words to say about poplar, by me, it’s robbing nutrients from other trees and chocking their roots. Following your video, I’ll try milling them, instead of brush piling and burning them. let’s see the results in a year. Thanks for doing your research and sharing your knowledge!!
I have been building tiny post and beam homes and they are awesome. Love cutting the trees into timbers. I have built picnic tables, fences, decks and they have been withstanding the elements here in Saskatchewan.
A NH casket company used a lot of poplar in their caskets. Also My brother in law couldn’t get much heat out of poplar in the wood stove. I have some large poplar as well as a variety of other large trees on my land. I’ve got some 60 year old ‘bull pine’ that I paid, I think $600 or $700 just to drop one with the bucket truck and leave it on the ground last Christmas and there ten or more white ‘bull’ pine that my neighbors might be worried about.
Totally agree poplar is a great soft "hardwood" works really well as a evergreen substitute for stick building. It's grain is also very similar in structure to walnut and cherry so if you stain it nicely it would fit right in with a lot more expensive hardwoods. Totally agree very flexible nice product!
@@hyzercreek even though it is commonly called Tulip Poplar, it is not actually in "poplar family" but every thing said in the above comment is still valid.
I've been debating getting a sawmill. I use a wood boiler to heat my place and go through so much wood I figgue I could cut more and have actual lumber too and just burn the scraps... Thank you for the video, great info! Cheers from Manitoba, Canada!
If you haven’t, could you do a video or tell us how you dry the poplar and keep it from twisting. I am looking to mill some and a friend basically said it’s a bugger to dry without splits, bows, cups and twist. Before I go all in, interested in how you do it. Thank you!
Some of the most stable wood you'll ever work with,love it. Another pretty and often overlooked hardwood here in West Virginia is black birch. It's not everywhere,but if you have any it mills beautifully and is pretty stable drying out.
Being I am a former timber professional (retired) I can say popular was always my favorite wood to saw lumber. When using rough cut to build with popular was also great because it was as you said stable and durable yet still easy to get nails and screws in. But for commercial market about only place that wanted popular was pallet makers. So we sawed thousands of board feet of 4x6 cants for pallets.
If you use a Humboldt notch when felling your timber you don't have to account for the notch in the log the notch is left on the stump, if you know I mean. Wasnt sure how to explain lol.
Just cruising TH-cam for info on Tulip poplar. I picked up a small board about 2" thick X 12" (fat side) x 8. I'm into building but also carving, I've heard it's not a bad carving wood. You, sir,, look like you're living the life. Hard work but very nice place. Watch out for those bears though 🐷
Just found out Woodmizer has carbide tipped Razor Tip sawmill blades on their web site. As a carpenter, when we changed from steel saw blades to carbide tipped, they would last for 3 months instead of a week. Might be worth the extra cost to try one.
I know you've used wood chips for the pig barn. What else do you use it for? I would think that if you just left it, it could attract termites. On the other hand, you're basically in a forest. There are probably termites around anyway.
Depends on species, grain, and even how I mill. For example, if I am milling to get quarter sawn white oak and I want to end up with a finished 1x6, I will mill 1.25 (5/4) x 6.50 knowing there will be little shrinkage. The extra half inch on the width is more for my edging allowance since I am edging with a table saw. Polar shrinks about 1/8 inch per 1.5 inches when air drying.
Thanks a lot for your videos they’re very informative. I was curious when you said Central West Virginia do you mean you’re in West Virginia or the west side of Virginia? I have a property in Scott county Virginia, which is the west part of Virginia and I’m new to milling and I’m setting up my saw shack on my 57 acres of pasture and woodlot. Would love to connect up at some point.
Ash is nice. Most ends up as firewood as it is all standing dead now. If I had the storage to put up 10,000 board feet to dry it would be worth a good bit of money in about 10 years.
@@RedToolHouse we have tons here dying My little woods that I have has a lot. I was thinking I could get it milled up to use as mobile chicken coops , pig shelters and turkey structures and maybe a shed or 2. If not just the frame of them. Or if I could use as siding that would be even better
@@RedToolHouse Yes, but it is also actually hardwood. It is an angiosperm, so it qualifies as a hardwood, even though it isn't particularly hard. This is just weirdness in naming and it would have been better if they called it something like hardseed and softseed. Soft Maple is a hardwood, but you would think that soft maple is a softwood based on the name. If the nut/seed is encased, it is a technically a hardwood. even if it is quite soft. Conifers are going to be softwoods and deciduous are going to be hardwoods.
@@shannonswyatt Soft maple is extremely hard, it's only called soft maple because hard maple is even harder. Hard maple (sugar maple) is harder than oak. Soft maple (red maple) is still very hard.
Up here in ME poplar/popple STINKS, I cant stand the smell of it but I still use it because it's no good for firewood. Then when I do saw poplar it's like banana wood, a plank will lift up 2" when sawed then it warps even more when drying, so what I do is saw it then nail it, let it dry nailed in place...
OK...so you sell it. Then what ? You have a pile of paper, no land to work and you think you're better off ? I 'might' sell mine when I get too old to work it, or I may just keep it to walk around and enjoy.
Tulip poplar is from the genus Liriodendron. It's not a true poplar such as white poplar, Lombardy, eastern, or cottonwood, or others from the populus genus.
In colonial times Poplar was known as the tree of friendship. It was easy and friendly to work with and has so many uses.
It's not poplar!!
@@hyzercreek EXACTLY! Never was there a worse misnomer!
I have two pretty large tulips two take down. They are both in the 120-130 ft tall and about 40-46 inches wide about 2ft up from the root swell. They both have a co-dom but the split is about 60-70 ft up. I’m planning to quarter saw all of it. Most I can afford at the moment is a chainsaw mill. I think I’ll go with a logosol, that set up seems to allow you to do the first two cuts of the quarter sawing as straight as you can with a chainsaw anyhow. I’m a finish carpenter so I saw the opportunity when I bought the property years ago. Thanks for the video !
Thanks for calling it tulip. That's the correct name.
Did you die from exhaustion lol
One 22" diameter at chest high poplar yielded four 12' longs, which sawed into 105 2x4x12'.....worth over $1,000 at today's big box pricing. In Tennessee, we can use rough lumber to build our homes as long as it comes off your own property.
And that's only 2x4 prices..the cheapest piece of lumber sold. You should check the price on what big box stores are charging for that In 1x4x12. I bet you double your price.
It's not poplar!
Im in Campbell county , I don't think they care what we use lol
@@hyzercreek Yeah its not a true poplar but that's what everyone calls it just like Eastern Red Cedar isn't cedar but 99% of people in Tennessee don't call it Juniper
@@tnmonty501 Nobody I know calls it poplar, because they are botanists and scientists. Only rednecks call it poplar.
I like larger poplar to mill. When you get down in the 10-12" diameter stuff, it tends to stress relieve a LOT on the mill......I've seen it arch 2" off the center of the mill as you saw. We too have a LOT of large poplar on our place. Most 2nd/3rd growth forests in the Appalachian region are that way.....big amount of logging took place in the 30-40-50's as the American chestnut was dying out, and the forest that came back is one of primarily poplar. I bought my place in 1982, and I'd estimate it was logged about 40 years before that, so my timber has another nearly 40 years on it.
Instablaster...
It's not poplar!
@@hyzercreek Yes, but these people call it that. Dumb.
@@boomer3150 Poplar is a genus in the willow family, there are many species, white poplar, big tooth aspen, lombardy poplar, white aspen, quaking aspen. All these are poplars. They have catkin flowers and drop seeds with cotton around them. THE TULIPTREE HAS YELLOW TULIP FLOWERS AND HARD SEEDS IS NOT EVEN REMOTELY RELATED TO POPLAR!!!! Stop calling them poplar.
I live in southeast ky, and worked around the Lexington ky area for 15 years. I've used enough yellow poplar lumber to cover half the country. We restored tobacco barns and converted a lot of them to horse barns. We used poplar are framing lumber cut as 2x6 and larger. Most of the footage was cut as 4/4 random width that we used as boxing. I've reboxed so many 100ft plus barns that I couldn't begin to count. I love poplar and have a lot on my little hilltop homestead myself. Great video!
I’ve got a barn to fix in SW Virginia, what do you mean when you say rebox?
@@brianwest9178 just knocking the old boxing off and replacing it with new. It's a good time to address any other issues with posts and wall purlins too
I’m loading up poplar on the Woodmizer first thing in the morning in Southern Ohio.
I milled 8 logs 20" x 10' a couple yrs ago @ 7/4, small shop where i worked one time we milled up 2,000 bf into door jambs & trim in a month
It's good for making trim. I use it alot for my house projects. Alot of people underestimate this tree,and they grow pretty fast
My dad's favorite wood to work with. He made a lot of good furniture from it. Dad always said it was the softest of the hardwoods.
I have a ton of this on my property. Been really think about getting a sawmill for a season to mill up some wood.. itd be great to use whats there already.
Yellow poplar is in the code book...so is red oak, white oak, red maple, basswood, sweet gum and black gum. They'll keep adding more. It started with a concern over a potential shortfall in yellow pine but I think now has become an easy doctoral thesis, but the knowledge is still of value. So you can have the wood graded etc., ts very close to syp, so very strong, but not as hard or heavy.
TROY, all I have left is standing dead ash, been felling them over the past few years, wish I had a sawmill to get boards but, they are great for firewood! Now that the canopy opened up more, the maples are taken off, thought bout makin syrup but just a thought.
I walk a stand in northern Ohio during mushroom season that has been spared. 30 inch plus and as strait as an arrow
Excellent video and well timed. It’s my favorite to mill on our homestead and I was just discussing it with another TH-cam homesteader who had questions. I’ll be sharing this video with him. Thanks for the great content.
Not too many ppl have good words to say about poplar, by me, it’s robbing nutrients from other trees and chocking their roots.
Following your video, I’ll try milling them, instead of brush piling and burning them.
let’s see the results in a year.
Thanks for doing your research and sharing your knowledge!!
It's not poplar
Cuts like butter
I have been building tiny post and beam homes and they are awesome. Love cutting the trees into timbers. I have built picnic tables, fences, decks and they have been withstanding the elements here in Saskatchewan.
It's a valuable bee forage tree. It can pay it's way while growing to lumber size.
A NH casket company used a lot of poplar in their caskets.
Also My brother in law couldn’t get much heat out of poplar in the wood stove.
I have some large poplar as well as a variety of other large trees on my land.
I’ve got some 60 year old ‘bull pine’ that I paid, I think $600 or $700 just to drop one with the bucket truck and leave it on the ground last Christmas and there ten or more white ‘bull’ pine that my neighbors might be worried about.
Totally agree poplar is a great soft "hardwood" works really well as a evergreen substitute for stick building. It's grain is also very similar in structure to walnut and cherry so if you stain it nicely it would fit right in with a lot more expensive hardwoods. Totally agree very flexible nice product!
It's not poplar!
@@hyzercreek even though it is commonly called Tulip Poplar, it is not actually in "poplar family" but every thing said in the above comment is still valid.
I've been debating getting a sawmill. I use a wood boiler to heat my place and go through so much wood I figgue I could cut more and have actual lumber too and just burn the scraps... Thank you for the video, great info! Cheers from Manitoba, Canada!
Webster county here 😊
Poplar is also a great luthiery wood for solid body electrics.
Sweet gum twists more than Chubby Checker. -KJ
If you haven’t, could you do a video or tell us how you dry the poplar and keep it from twisting. I am looking to mill some and a friend basically said it’s a bugger to dry without splits, bows, cups and twist. Before I go all in, interested in how you do it. Thank you!
A friend of mine has a bunch of Poplar that I will be milling for him as soon as I get our mill put together.
Some of the most stable wood you'll ever work with,love it. Another pretty and often overlooked hardwood here in West Virginia is black birch. It's not everywhere,but if you have any it mills beautifully and is pretty stable drying out.
Thats fantastic, I love that Poplar, worked with it in grade school, informative video thank you,
Nice video. 👍 From Cadillac Michigan.. Fellow Norwood owner
hi there just got 9 popular logs tightest grain pop i have ever seen , good show john
I built a really nice bar out of poplar last year came out great. Still looks great a year later!
Being I am a former timber professional (retired) I can say popular was always my favorite wood to saw lumber. When using rough cut to build with popular was also great because it was as you said stable and durable yet still easy to get nails and screws in. But for commercial market about only place that wanted popular was pallet makers. So we sawed thousands of board feet of 4x6 cants for pallets.
It's not poplar!
@@hyzercreek what's not popular?
never heard of the 'popular' species.
New sub, im thinking seriously about using poplar for sidding.
Nice love popular ty
If you use a Humboldt notch when felling your timber you don't have to account for the notch in the log the notch is left on the stump, if you know I mean. Wasnt sure how to explain lol.
“BEARS” HAHAHAHAHAHAH that made my day. Thanks.
Great video
Just cruising TH-cam for info on Tulip poplar. I picked up a small board about 2" thick X
12" (fat side) x 8. I'm into building but also carving, I've heard it's not a bad carving wood. You, sir,, look like you're living the life. Hard work but very nice place. Watch out for those bears though 🐷
Just found out Woodmizer has carbide tipped Razor Tip sawmill blades on their web site. As a carpenter, when we changed from steel saw blades to carbide tipped, they would last for 3 months instead of a week. Might be worth the extra cost to try one.
Rainbow poplar is the most beautiful lumber... change my mind!
Figured Koa would like to have a word...
go buy poplar trim at the lumber yard and see what it costs.
Tell me about it. I about fell over the last time I was in Menards. The board I am holding in the thumbnail would be $40 or more
@@RedToolHouse i was at menards couple weeks ago and it was almost 6 dollars for a pine 8' 2x4.
Have you thought about cutting survey stakes or garden stakes? I think it could be right profitable!
I know you've used wood chips for the pig barn. What else do you use it for? I would think that if you just left it, it could attract termites. On the other hand, you're basically in a forest. There are probably termites around anyway.
So, if you wanted to end up with “true” sized dimensional lumber what shrinkage allowance, if any, do you mill for?
Depends on species, grain, and even how I mill. For example, if I am milling to get quarter sawn white oak and I want to end up with a finished 1x6, I will mill 1.25 (5/4) x 6.50 knowing there will be little shrinkage. The extra half inch on the width is more for my edging allowance since I am edging with a table saw.
Polar shrinks about 1/8 inch per 1.5 inches when air drying.
I like tulip poplar for interior moulding. Would it be good for exterior fascia boards and window trim?
The pioneers used poplar to build cabins with. If all the sap wood is removed the bugs don't like it. That is until it's the only option.
Thanks for the info and I like the fact that you're going back to country living the way Jesus intended for us to live Let's stop eating the pigs
Jesus allows us to each pigs. The OT law prohibited it now we have a new covenant
@@RedToolHouse RULDS2?
------ pretty sure Jesus didn't have a gasoline powered sawmill
Where in WV? I live in Ripley area.
Can tulip poplar be used for timber framing a cabin? Thanks
Yes. That is my understanding. We will know soon as I am starting to build the timber frame structure for my sawmill building.
Thanks a lot for your videos they’re very informative. I was curious when you said Central West Virginia do you mean you’re in West Virginia or the west side of Virginia? I have a property in Scott county Virginia, which is the west part of Virginia and I’m new to milling and I’m setting up my saw shack on my 57 acres of pasture and woodlot. Would love to connect up at some point.
We are in WV. About 30 minutes south west of Charleston
I'm in Webster County 😊@@RedToolHouse
Why do they water logs at lumber yards
Because dirt ruins the saw.
Curious why you decided to go with the Norwood Lumbermate.for your sawmill. Did you consider Frontier or Woodland Mills?
Hud-Son is also a good brand. Had one, forced to sell, really miss it.
Im a sawyer in WV also where about s are you?
Lincoln county
How is Ash for making the projects you want to build?
Ash is nice. Most ends up as firewood as it is all standing dead now. If I had the storage to put up 10,000 board feet to dry it would be worth a good bit of money in about 10 years.
@@RedToolHouse we have tons here dying
My little woods that I have has a lot. I was thinking I could get it milled up to use as mobile chicken coops , pig shelters and turkey structures and maybe a shed or 2. If not just the frame of them. Or if I could use as siding that would be even better
👍
Do you re plant any hard wood like oak?
Keep in mind that hardwood and softwood are based on the fruit/flower. Balsa is a hardwood, but no one would call it a hard wood.
Yes, but the hardwood industry recognized tulip poplar as a hardwood based on density and value.
@@RedToolHouse Yes, but it is also actually hardwood. It is an angiosperm, so it qualifies as a hardwood, even though it isn't particularly hard. This is just weirdness in naming and it would have been better if they called it something like hardseed and softseed. Soft Maple is a hardwood, but you would think that soft maple is a softwood based on the name. If the nut/seed is encased, it is a technically a hardwood. even if it is quite soft. Conifers are going to be softwoods and deciduous are going to be hardwoods.
It is funny how biology and industry take things in a different direction.
@@shannonswyatt Soft maple is extremely hard, it's only called soft maple because hard maple is even harder. Hard maple (sugar maple) is harder than oak. Soft maple (red maple) is still very hard.
Up here in ME poplar/popple STINKS, I cant stand the smell of it but I still use it because it's no good for firewood. Then when I do saw poplar it's like banana wood, a plank will lift up 2" when sawed then it warps even more when drying, so what I do is saw it then nail it, let it dry nailed in place...
Is it yellow/tulip poplar in ME or real poplar?
Is your popular like Michigan cottonwood?
Not related to any type of poplar and only ignorant people call it poplar. Cottonwood is poplar. These are tulip trees.
You forgot a name for tulip poplar. It's also goes by the name poor man's maple.
100 ac will fetch you near 7 digits here.... averaging 10k an acre......how much wood can you harvest for that price ?
Never $10k per acre worth. Not going to see that price around here anytime soon.
OK...so you sell it. Then what ? You have a pile of paper, no land to work and you think you're better off ? I 'might' sell mine when I get too old to work it, or I may just keep it to walk around and enjoy.
Tulip poplar is from the genus Liriodendron. It's not a true poplar such as white poplar, Lombardy, eastern, or cottonwood, or others from the populus genus.
Oh man, your wasting the bark!!!! Easy to unless in one piece,super handy for cladding,ext, an it keeps log dirt free
Never put a climbing tree stand in a Poplar tree, OR you may end up in a ICU unit for 6 days lol Dont ask me how I know lol
Why?
@@curtcmiller Poplar Bark peels like a banana peel when you put a climbing stand in it :)
but it STINKS