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Tulip Poplar smell?

Geo-TH,In

Geo-TH,In

Well-known Member
A while back I had a very large tulip poplar tree removed from a yard. I know a man with a saw mill who will cut it in to lumber. The log was so big, his skidder couldn't lift the log. He cut it to 10 ft 6 in.

The other day he brought me some, about 100 board ft. 10ft 6 long. I put in the rafters of pole barn to dry out.

Well I've been trying to figure out what the wet poplar smells like. I couldn't put my finger on it until today.

So what smells like wet tulip poplar? I'll let you guess for a day or two before I give you what I think it smells like. Give you a hint, the smell goes back to the days when I grew up on a dairy farm and it's not cow poo.
George
 
Have sawed a lot over the last 36 years on my sawmill. It does smell some when green, but no smell after it dries a while. Makes great lumber and many houses and barns have been built with it.
Here is a pic of a cabin my son built with poplar.
Richard in NW SC
a148232.jpg
 
I think its related to cottonwood, which smells like cat urine. Or, as the loggers say, panther pi$$.

Had some big (3') cottonwood logs- didn't want to cut them up for firewood, because the only thing worse for firewood than cottonwood is rocks. Talked to a local guy with a mill- he said he'd take them if I hauled them to the mill, but if I dumped them in the millpond, I'd better have a scuba outfit, because I was going in after them- green cottonwood sinks.

I hauled them to his place, carefully placed them beside the pond, and thankfully never heard another word about them. That was 30 years ago, I think I'm in the clear.
 
We have cottonwood here also. It is a totally different wood. I sawed a cottonwood log years ago and after the lumber dried, I could pick up a 10 foot 2 by 6 with 2 fingers.
Fresh green poplar does smell, but if I want to really feel sick, I would saw green walnut. It really stinks.
Richard
 
Just remember that poplars a pretty soft wood. my dad did the living room floor with it.
it will dent easily. Softer than most pine. This was from a tree blown down in 1955.
 
Must be several kinds of poplar. Lyle from Canada posted photos of black poplar that he was actually calling hard wood. We have yellow poplar here that is mid range not hard wood but certainly nothing like cotton wood. Looks like what the posted cabin was built from. Grows fast and straight and makes great lumber for gates and all around use as long as it does not touch the ground. I love to saw it. Smell has never been a problem.
 
Answer: Corn Silage, a green like smell.

47 years ago, I left the dairy farm, but you don't forget the smell of silage, especially when you had to climb the silo and fork it out. In the winter it was like taking a steam bath in the smell.
 
Yes, green the smell of money, like John Deere green.

I like both green and red, IH red is a hot smell.
 

Lots of wood has an oder when bucked up and split green.None of that other wood smells like popple though, at least around here.Some times a sulpher smell like soft boiled eggs and sometimes like cat pee.Sometimes hardly any oder at all.Once dry no oder at all.Someone mentioned how soft is.The popple in this area,and I don't know what kind it is,when fully seasoned is HARD.If you want to drive a nail into it you'd better drill first!
 
GVSII,
I'm not sure what I'm going to do with 100 ft of free popular. I also have about 100 ft of free red oak.

I give my logs to a guy with sawmill. He gives me some of it back. Once I gave him a walnut log. Wish he gave me some of lumber, instead he sent me a $300 check.

Some of you may think the guy is taking advantage of me. The popular and walnut were trees growing in a yard. No one in my area want anything to do with yard trees. I have a problem with good lumber going up in smoke. Not to mention, where I live I only know one guy who wants fire wood. He only wants the good stuff after I cut it up. That won't happen again. I'll pay to have trees cut down. The same guy will chip it up and I get the chips for mulch.
George
 
Soon after a cow eats silage, it turns to chit.

No need to say you're sorry. I love the smell of IH red. I have my mother's IH C, priceless. Love to mow with it. I have a 6 ft woods mower on it off an IH H.

Best riding tractor ever. It's also a zero turn mower.
 
(quoted from post at 10:07:42 03/07/14)
Lots of wood has an oder when bucked up and split green.None of that other wood smells like popple though, at least around here.Some times a sulpher smell like soft boiled eggs and sometimes like cat pee.Sometimes hardly any oder at all.Once dry no oder at all.Someone mentioned how soft is.The popple in this area,and I don't know what kind it is,when fully seasoned is HARD.If you want to drive a nail into it you'd better drill first!
Click to expand...

Not tulip poplar then.
 
Technically, any tree with leaves is a hardwood, and an evergreen is a softwood.

Which it is actually has nothing to do with how hard it actually is.

So poplar and cottonwood are soft hardwoods.

Yeah.
 
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