Wood Gloat....well sort of....and what is this?

[Mark Blatter]

A couple of weeks ago I answered a local add for hardwood for sale. I ended up getting about 1400 board feet for $650, which is, without a doubt a great price. However, about 20% of it was cut into 1.75" strips for face frame material. Some of it was a little nasty, and 65% was red oak. Still for about $.40 a board foot, I shouldn't complain. I originally thought it was all oak, cherry and maple. In sorting it, I found about 70 bf of some nice mahogany, more maple than I had anticipated and unexpectedly quite a bit of white oak, which I needed for a chair project. There was also bout 20 bf of red gum, which while a challenge to work with, is a beautiful wood.

However there is roughly 150 bf of the wood below. It is light weight, falling somewhere between alder and cherry. I think it is soft maple of some variety, but wanted to see what others thought.
270935

[John Lanciani]

Looks like poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) to me based on the pic and description.

[Dave Zellers]

Poplar also.

[Mark Blatter]

OK. I had considered poplar, but there is no green in it at all, so dismissed it. Perhaps wishful thinking on my part.

[eugene thomas]

Well, latley poplar is getting pricey. The effect of painted cabinets being the in thing.

[Rob Holcomb]

I'm almost positive that it's Maple. You're likely right that it's a soft Maple species. It also has some resemblance to Larch

[Peter Quinn]

thats poplar (tulip, or yellow poplar, not actual poplar, which we almost never see here in my area, but what we all call poplar....confused?) I'd be willing to bet a box of donuts its not soft maple, based on the grain, the color, and soft maple is not particularly light, just a touch lighter than hard. Its like if Mike Tyson had a really tough slighter smaller cousin, and they called him soft Mike, just relative to his heavy weight cousin. Its not particularly soft or light, just a bit more of both than Eastern hard maple, so it gets that rap. If I had to guess I'd say that poplar has a bit of bottle age on it, its been sitting around a while, oxidized, so the greens are faded, the purples are browns, it ages to about the color I'm seeing there. It so often gets painted, its actually an attractive stain grade wood to some.

[Peter Quinn]

Well, latley poplar is getting pricey. The effect of painted cabinets being the in thing.

Uh...not in my area. Its a supply and demand thing....it grows like a weed, so the supply is almost always ahead of the demand. Price had been static here for almost a decade. Soft maple is up a bit, mostly gets painted here, but poplar is the down with bass wood.

[Justin Ludwig]

We use a ton of poplar around here. It's very cheap and "poplar" for painted cabinets and stained closets. Looks like poplar to me. I've seen it many times with no purple or green. I also use it for back band/nailer material on cabinets that have birch interiors.

[Jason White]

I think it's poplar.


A couple of weeks ago I answered a local add for hardwood for sale. I ended up getting about 1400 board feet for $650, which is, without a doubt a great price. However, about 20% of it was cut into 1.75" strips for face frame material. Some of it was a little nasty, and 65% was red oak. Still for about $.40 a board foot, I shouldn't complain. I originally thought it was all oak, cherry and maple. In sorting it, I found about 70 bf of some nice mahogany, more maple than I had anticipated and unexpectedly quite a bit of white oak, which I needed for a chair project. There was also bout 20 bf of red gum, which while a challenge to work with, is a beautiful wood.

However there is roughly 150 bf of the wood below. It is light weight, falling somewhere between alder and cherry. I think it is soft maple of some variety, but wanted to see what others thought.
270935

[Yonak Hawkins]

It kind of looks like birch to me.

[Mark Blatter]

... If I had to guess I'd say that poplar has a bit of bottle age on it, its been sitting around a while, oxidized, so the greens are faded, the purples are browns, it ages to about the color I'm seeing there.

I was told that this lumber all came from a cabinet shop about 20 years ago, so yeah it has been sitting around for a few years.

Thanks all.

[David Cefai]

OK. I had considered poplar, but there is no green in it at all, so dismissed it. Perhaps wishful thinking on my part.

As I understand it, the red or green colours are caused by soil conditions and may not be mandatory for all poplar. I live way away from the US and over here it is always called "American Tulip" and has green or black parts. I've never seen red.

[Dan Hintz]

As I understand it, the red or green colours are caused by soil conditions and may not be mandatory for all poplar. I live way away from the US and over here it is always called "American Tulip" and has green or black parts. I've never seen red.

Neighbors took down several huge Poplars from their backyard a couple of years back (storm damage). I grabbed all of the pieces I could muster that had color in it... I'd say 2/3rds of it had red radiating from the core. Beautiful stuff, but I don't know if the color lasted... haven't checked on it much since I threw it in the spalt pile, just enough to make sure it's not going bad. Probably time to bring it out before winter hits.

[Dave Zellers]

In my experience, all the various colors age to a tan or brown color with time and exposure to light.