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Cottonwood?

Rusty Nesmith

Rusty Nesmith

Joined
Feb 16, 2021
Messages
1,300
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1,868
Location
Parkersburg, West Virginia
I saw a couple of guys cutting down a tree. I had to stop and ask if they were looking to get rid of some of it. They said somebody already claimed it and it wouldn't be good firewood. I told them I was a woodturner and tried to get a couple of pieces when I see people cutting down a tree. They gave me a couple. They said it was cottonwood. Looked like spalted maple to me. It is spalted. What do you all think.FFE59726-A22C-4693-A766-43D36A45E665.jpegC60468B4-F31A-4B61-AFBC-22EFAC37ACB1.jpeg8B3E4B6B-05F4-417E-84CC-408871F8F46D.jpeg
 
Rusty Nesmith said:
I saw a couple of guys cutting down a tree. I had to stop and ask if they were looking to get rid of some of it. They said somebody already claimed it and it wouldn't be good firewood. I told them I was a woodturner and tried to get a couple of pieces when I see people cutting down a tree. They gave me a couple. They said it was cottonwood. Looked like spalted maple to me. It is spalted. What do you all think.

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Stained Silver Maple IMO, here are 2 pics, Silver Maple and Large Cottonwood tree.Siver Maple tree bark.jpg
Cottonwood bark.jpg
 
Only cottonwood I have seen was in New Mexico, it was large tree
 
There are several species of Cottonwood in the U.S. Most prevalent are Black Cottonwood and Eastern Cottonwood. I turn a lot of Cottonwood because I can get pick it up along the river almost anytime. It is one of the few "hardwoods" I have easy access to. It is highly unlikely that that is Black Cottonwood, especially if you got it in West Virginia. Black usually has the much courser, thicker bark like that shown in the picture with the kids hugging it. Could be Easten. If so, it'll be pretty soft. Oftentimes smells pretty bad when you turn it. Decays very fast. Also gets wormy quickly. I'm not super fluent in east coast trees. you've got so many to choose from.
 
I don't disagree with the assessments of this particular piece. For a while I collected cottonwood/poplar bark for making fly rod grips and spent a lot of time looking at it. (The grips were beautiful but brittle, and ultimately didn't work out.) Cottonwood sometimes has large patches of flattened bark on the trunk. I assumed it was from rubbing against a nearby tree, but I've also seen it where there was no nearby tree to explain it.
 
I have turned a lot of Silver Maple, and have two big ones in my yard. I agree with everyone that says it's Silver Maple. Turns very nicely, but not as hard as sugar maple. We often call it soft maple to differentiate it. It's roughly half way between sugar maple and cottonwood in hardness and weight. Not typically made into lumber. Your piece is definitely not cottonwood. Silver Maple also spalts very nicely. Good score. Get it roughed out soon!
 
Brent@TurnRobust said:
I have turned a lot of Silver Maple, and have two big ones in my yard. I agree with everyone that says it's Silver Maple. Turns very nicely, but not as hard as sugar maple. We often call it soft maple to differentiate it. It's roughly half way between sugar maple and cottonwood in hardness and weight. Not typically made into lumber. Your piece is definitely not cottonwood. Silver Maple also spalts very nicely. Good score. Get it roughed out soon!
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I didn’t think it was cottonwood but thought I would ask. It looked a lot like what they call water maple around here. I have plenty of that so I only got a couple of pieces.
 
Only cotton wood I have gotten smelled like some one threw up on it. Some forestry majors up at Oregon State said they didn't like working with it because of the smell. Maple does tend to smell kind of 'yeasty' as in a bit sweet with that bread smell to it. Apparently one commercial use for cotton wood is for horse stalls. It tastes as bad as it smells, and the horses won't chew on it.

robo hippy
 
Absolutely smells bad. Like I said, I turn a lot of it. Sometimes it would actually make me nauseous. Now I use a powered respirator. Helps a lot. It can be very pretty wood....or very plain. The stuff I turn has usually been dead and down for several years, so has a lot of worm holes. I use the worm holes as a "feature". Makes very nice, very large hollow vessels.
 
robo hippy said:
Some forestry majors up at Oregon State said they didn't like working with it because of the smell.
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My BIL is a retired tree trimmers for the local power company in Minneapolis said the cottonwood is extremely dangerous to trim due to the fact that branches will break off when cut halfway through. About 10 years ago my son bought a home on the Mississippi river that had 2 trees in the 5 foot diameter class and before he moved in there was a storm that took an 18" diameter live branch off of one. I did try turning some of the pieces but was totally unimpressed.
 
Yes Poplar wood is very variable, from bland to eye popping, I have seen some pictures of platter/bowls that got turned from the large crotch of poplar, just unbelievable the chatoyance that they had, I turned some spalted and just plain Poplar/Aspen wood, for a lampshade it is the choice wood.

Here are a couple different ones I turned.

Poplar lampshade.jpg Aspen.jpg Poplar bowl.jpg Spalted Poplar.jpg
 
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