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Lombardy Poplar

David Somers

David Somers

Joined
Aug 8, 2005
Messages
284
Likes
1
Location
Ballard (Seattle) WA and Volcano, Hawaii....on top
Merry Christmas and Happy New Years everyone!

Anyone have any experience working with Lombardy Poplar? I was able to get a bunch on short notice when a local hospital cleared ground for some new construction. I end sealed most of it but started turning one hunk before I had to lay off for the Holidays. Anyone have thoughts on this stuff? This is definately green wood.

Mele Kalikimaka!
 
aloha

Dave-aloha. Haven't heard from you in a long time-hope all is well. Aren't Lom. poplar what farmers use for wind rows?? Small diameter trees with lots of small branches. Haven't seen the inside of them tho. Gretch
 
Hey Gretch!!

I am doing really well. Been good, just way too busy to turn or even pay attention to the forums for quite a while. Office work just kept getting more and more out of control. Long story....but in my own efforts to make things keep spiralling out of control I transferred from HI to Seattle for the last few years of my career to boost my annuity. Am settled in living on our old boat in a marina in Ballard and working in our regional office downtown and doing the remote sweetie thing with my wife, Casey, who is back in HI. She knows the Pacific Northwest Coast and realized winter there was not for her, so she has remained in HI with our house and the dogs, and is working for the park there. We are doing the remote sweetie thing and traveling back and forth to see each other....me traveling to HI in the bad weather, and Casey coming to Seattle when the weather is good. I rented a garage in Ballard to house the lathe and am finally getting back into turning again. Happened to score the poplar and was just curious what folks had found after working with it.

You are right about it being used as a fast growing windbreak. 6 foot growth a year under good conditions. 40 to 50 feet tall and about a 10 t0 15 foot spread. Doesnt tend to live long in the states because of various bugs and diseases that like it though. Nice white wood with mid brown growth rings. I glommed onto this stuff cause the trunk shapes were neat and looked like they would make some fun end grain natural edged bowls.

I did notice it doesnt seem to cut curls no matter how I have approached it. Cuts fast enough and cleanly, but in chips and dust, not usually in curls. That was interesting. I have my first rough out being cedar treated right now and will finish it when I get back in Jan. (am home in HI now for the Holidays, returning to Seattle Jan 6)

Here are two links that show the cut wood and the one piece I had roughed on the lathe before returning to HI for the Holidays.

http://gallery.me.com/d_somers#100055
http://gallery.me.com/d_somers#100063

Anyway.....that is what is up with both me and the Poplar!

How have you been doing? Hope the Holidays are shaping up really great for you!!

Dave
 
Dave
I've only played with it a little (a neighbor cut some down) and not certain I would spend much effort at it, not since Big Leaf Maple and Madrone is found all over around here.

TTFN
Ralph
 
Ralph,

You know how it is. You live in the city itself and you take what pops up (or I should say comes down..<grin>) This was free and decent size and looked like it might be fun to dink with. I will let everyone know how it goes.

I noticed you are in "wetter washington?" I am living over in Shilshole Marina near Ballard....north Seattle.

Dave
 
It's poplar. Cuts, smells and finishes like other poplars and willows. Musty wet smell, soft fiber fuzzies, and thirsty for finish.

You have to be taking a big bite to get curls, because the soft stuff breaks up easily rather than hanging together. Once it dries, it works like other soft hardwoods.
 
MichaelMouse said:
It's poplar. Cuts, smells and finishes like other poplars and willows. Musty wet smell, soft fiber fuzzies, and thirsty for finish.

You have to be taking a big bite to get curls, because the soft stuff breaks up easily rather than hanging together. Once it dries, it works like other soft hardwoods.
Click to expand...

Thanks Michael! It hasnt been unpleasant to work so far. Will see how the Cedar Treat handled it when I get back in Jan and pop a note in here about how it goes. I have to admit though, producing sawdust from a gouge doesnt provide quite the same lovely feedback as producing chips and shavings! It will do though! It will keep me off the streets of Ballard at night which is the important thing. Not out there getting tats and tacks with the other boys in the waterfront bars!

Dave
 
Hi,
Michael is right!
I often work in poplar, very often. It depends a lot on the tree you have but in most cases when it is wet turned the results are awfull.
Last month I am turning the worst poplar I ever had: incredible dreadfull and completely damashed where the yearrings are. you never can imagine it will end well: but it does! If you have the time to wait after roughturning until it is dry, your results can be very satifying. I turn my models in poplar.
But of course ... no nice curls ... only good design if you are patient.

Merry christmas - Squirrel
 
Thanks Squirrel!

On the first piece I am trying a product Hawaiian folks have been using for a while now called Cedar Treat. At least on the woods we have in Hawaii it works great stabilizing them in fairly short order with no apparent effect on the woods look or ability to take a finish. I soaked it in the product before I left for the Holidays. After two weeks the wood should be ready to finish turning. I get back to Seattle on the 6th and will post a note here about how it looks. I figure if nothing else, I will have good firewood to give to friends....but at least when I left, the wood looked promising. Fingers are crossed.

Dave
 
Ray Puffer said:
Dave,
I am not familiar with the name cedar treat. Is this the same as Pentacryl? See http://www.preservation-solutions.com/category.php?category_id=1000&source=GoogleWood. Ray
Click to expand...

Morning Ray!

Cedar Treat is a product from a company called Cedar Cide. It is a cedar oil based product that folks in Hawaii started using to stabilize wood. Especially Koa. You rough turn your piece first. It is a very thin liquid. You brush or spray it on, or you can dip your piece if you have enough on hand. Then depending on the wood, let it sit for up to 2 weeks. During that time the stuff soaks into the cells of the wood and gels the water in the cells. When done the cedar aroma is gone and the wood is dry and ready to be turned to final.

The folks doing Koa for a living swear by it. They used to have to rough pieces and set them aside for 6 months to a year to dry before they could final them, and in that time the loss to cracking was pretty high. The loss to cracking was also fairly high when the finished pieces were bought and carried to the mainland by tourists. Cedar Treat nearly eliminated that loss. And because of that they do not have to have storage for a years worth of rough turned stock. The rest of us duffers love it cause it helps a lot with some of our local, crack prone wood like Macadamia Nut and Ohia.

It does not affect your woods ability to take a stain or finish at all, and it doesnt change the woods color that I can see. The Cedar odor goes away when it is done, and the FDA has declared it safe for food contact. (in other words, it can be used on utility bowls that will be in contact with food) It also kills boring insects like power post beetles and termites....a big issue in HI.

I am trying it with the Poplar right now and will see how it goes. I get back to Seattle on the 6th and will pull out that poplar later in the week and see what happens. That will be a bit over 4 weeks since I treated it.

The stuff runs around 45$ a gallon. It goes along way though. Each piece absorbs very little liquid.

If you live somewhere relatively near Seattle you are welcome to have some and play with it if you want. My shop is in North Seattle in the community of Ballard. Otherwise, I think the folks at Cedar Cide will send you a sample if you ask.

Their web site is.....
www.cedarcide.com
and their direct link to the Cedar Treat Product is
http://www.cedarcidestore.com/catalog/item/3343694/2900278.htm

See what you think. I have always been curious that it does not seem to have become more widely used in the mainland. Alot of Hawaii Turners have come to love it. I am hoping it is not the specific woods we have here that makes it work so well. After all, we do have a huge number of introduced species here that we turn aside from the natives like Koa and Milo. I have used it on Norfolk Pine, Monterey Pine, Sugi Cedar and other Cedars, Maple, Ohia, Mango, Kou, Koa, Hibiscus, Macadamia Nut, Oaks, etc.

Dave
 
Dave, thanks for the link to CedarCide. I'll get some and give it a try. A few years ago when I was in Maui I purchased an entire Koa log, had it milled, and shipped here to upstate NY. Also got some mango and a couple other native woods. I have been lucky as I have had no checking of any of the wood. I love turning the Koa. Nice figure and color. I'll try the CedarCide on some cherry. A friend had a large cherry tree come down and called me to help cut it up. Could not believe it, a clear trunk over 20 feet long, up to 22" in diameter. Needless to say I now have a large pile of blanks waiting to be turned. Lots of friends will get bowls and platters from that tree. Ray
 
I also use CedarCide (also has the name "Woodturners Choice" on the label I get) and swear by it. Very little warping and close to zero cracks on any wood I could through at it. Dave is right on all counts. Finishing is the same (sanding seems even better) and a little goes a long way. Two weeks (or less) of sitting in the shop and the pieces are ready for final turning. Great stuff (no affiliation).
Don L.
 
Don Leydens said:
I also use CedarCide (also has the name "Woodturners Choice" on the label I get) and swear by it. Very little warping and close to zero cracks on any wood I could through at it. Dave is right on all counts. Finishing is the same (sanding seems even better) and a little goes a long way. Two weeks (or less) of sitting in the shop and the pieces are ready for final turning. Great stuff (no affiliation).
Don L.
Click to expand...

Don, It is amazing stuff isnt it? I am not a professional turner and it makes a huge difference for me. I can only imagine how it transformed the Professionals out here in HI. They dont have to have a full years worth of work rough turned and drying on hand in order to keep working. Imagine the reduction in storage that would give you.....not to mention making you more resistant to disasters like our big earthquake a few years ago. Alot of these folks have their drying roughouts stored high on shelves all around the top of their shops. The earthquake dropped a lot of that stock. If that were all their work for the next year they would have been in big trouble. With Cedar Treat they are able to recover much more easily. Then there is the benefit of reduced returns on pieces carried from the humid Hawaii environment to the much drier environments of people's mainland homes. Good stuff.

And like you, I have no association of any sort with the Cedar Cide company.

I think I mentioned that if someone reads this and lives relatively near Ballard, WA (Seattle) I am happy to share what I have so you can play with it.

Dave
 
Follow up on the Poplar Bowl - as promised

OK.....I got back to Seattle after the holidays and after suffering in the office for a while I managed to get back into the shop and was able to continue to play with the poplar. I promised I would report back to everyone on how it went so here goes!

This is interesting stuff. The cedar treat had cured for about a month so the wood was light as a feather. The finish cuts worked fine on it and I ended up with a nice smooth surface to work with. I still have some sanding to go on it to finish removing some tool marks but so far it looks good. The pith in the bottom did warp a bit, but seems to have relaxed now and it sits flat. The bottom was a simple ring.

Next time around I need to leave the wood thicker. I think that will take cares of the warping. I also need to be more careful with the bark. Some popped off. It was difficult to treat the raw wood to make it match the remaining bark but I think I did it, at least no one handling the piece so far has been able to tell where the bark ends and raw wood begins, even when I have told them what happened. That is a good sign. I made it match by using a bit of woodburning along with a dark bronze and green buffing wax brushed on with a toothbrush, and then roughed up with a wire tooth brush and allowed to dry Looks good. The wax came from a local art store.

I had tried an oil on it called Penafil Marine Oil, but found that it yellowed the wood too much. If you dont know that the wood was nearly pure white with the darker pith it looks OK. But if you had seen it before the oil was applied you would not care for what the oil did. I will skip the oil on the next pieces from this tree.

A Photo of the sanded but unfinished piece is attached. I started 2 more bowls from similar pieces, one deeper than the other. They are now roughed out and have been cedar treated and are curing. You can catch photos of those at this link if you are interested.

http://gallery.me.com/d_somers#100090 In this link, shots 125, 128, and 129 are one bowl, and the remaining shots are the second piece in progress.

All in all I would work with this wood again, and wont relegate what I have left to someones woodstove. Once you get used to the fact that you will simply not get shavings from it you are fine. It actually cuts quite controllably. The white of the sap wood contrasts nicely with the pith, and the green color of the bark is striking as well. Though I imagine that will fade out fairly soon.

Anyway...been worth playing with so far. And what the heck....its free! All it has taken is some of my time.

Hope you are all doing great!

Dave
 

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David Somers said:
Next time around I need to leave the wood thicker. I think that will take cares of the warping. I also need to be more careful with the bark. Some popped off.
Click to expand...

The wood contracts upon itself, causing warp. That means the greater the amount of wood in a straight line to contract, the greater the absolute shrink/warp. Lots of persistent myths associated with woodturning - it is an art, after all - this is one of them. In my experience, leaving an inch of wood on a sixteen inch bowl loses as much absolute dimension as leaving the same inch on a ten inch piece. If I go to 3/4 or less on the small one I not only get less dimensional loss, I get the benefit of shorter cure time. Shape of the piece is the main determinant of direction.

I have taken to reinforcing the cambium layer with CA automatically on bark up pieces. Helps, but will not entirely prevent bark pops - kerf with a razor saw in a scarf joint and glue them down, BTW - and keeps the bark on better when people want to touch or I have to handle it. LOVE the thick bark on poplars.

True poplars are as close to bulletproof in drying as anything I've ever turned, so you can take amazing liberties which would result in disaster on other pieces in your creative search.

Love the outboard turning "leg". Only way to go, in my experience. Enjoy.
 
Good morning Michael!

Once the Cedar Treat has cured another day or so I intend to CA the bark. On the bowl that started this thread the bark popped during roughing. I suspect I was just not gentle enough when entering my cut on those wings. I also suspect the bark there was pretty bruised from felling the tree. These new pieces dont seem to have impacted the ground during felling and the bark seems much more solid. Another thing in my favor is that even here in relatively balmy Seattle this is winter and the sap is down. Should make for more solid bark than if this were spring or early summer wood. Will let you know how these next two hold up.

The warping in the bottom surprised me. Normally Cedar Treat has spared me that once it has cured. This was turned thinner than I might normally do for this kind of big, winged turning though, and the pith was dead center. I was also using a thin and shallow ring for the foot with a pretty wide diameter so that left a lot of space for the bottom to warp into with little space to compensate for it. And..... I had put the piece into a little drying rack I made using a little 100 watt heater thinking the oil I had put on would need temps over 50 to cure. It was about 40 for the high at the time. I suspect that was all just too much temptation for the pith. Nice to see it has relaxed now though and sits flat again without any effort on my part. (self healing bowls.....doesnt get better than that, huh? <grin>) Next time my foot will have more height to it so it has some space to accomodate warpage like this, and I wont cure the oil in that heated rack. Hopefully that will ease the woods movement a bit. We'll see.

That leg on the outboard stand is terrific. This is the Vicmark outboard stand. It adapts easily to the Jet Lathe. If I remember right I first got the idea from another turner on this forum......though I cant remember the name right now to give credit. It is rock solid and has been worth every penny. Doesnt eat up nearly as much space in my little shop as a free standing stand, and it is far more solid, and it was way cheaper to buy and ship to HI which is where I was when I installed it. Good deal. My main concern is that I dont believe the bearings on this Jet are up to the added weight cantilevered off the end like this. Not a big deal though. The community I am in is a ship repair community and there are machine shops with bearings adjacent to nearly every starbucks around here. (it is a community in Seattle after all! <grin>) It is easy enough to take the head in to have good bearings put on when these start to go.

I have a bunch more of this poplar from that particular score so I will have fun with the remaining pieces. Thanks for all your thoughts on this stuff Michael!

Dave
 
Last edited:
Another thought for the future. A lot of people who turn end-grained stuff like yours or goblet bases and so forth make a big mistake in letting it sit on its own. Get the bottom up off of what it's sitting on so it can lose moisture from both sides more evenly. Keeps you from having a sheltered, wet bottom side which stays expanded and an open, dry top side which contracts, causing stress which can lead to a crack or other permanent "adjustment" that you may not want.
 
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